title: Cost of areal reduction of gulf hypoxia through agricultural practice.
abstract: A major share of the area of hypoxic growth in the Northern Gulf of Mexico has been attributed to nutrient run-off from agricultural fields, but no estimate is available for the cost of reducing Gulf hypoxic area using agricultural conservation practices. We apply the Soil and Water Assessment Tool using observed daily weather to simulate the reduction in nitrogen loading in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) that would result from enrolling all row crop acreage in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Nitrogen loadings at the outlet of the UMRB are used to predict Gulf hypoxic area, and net cash farm rent is used as the price for participation in the CRP. Over the course of the 42 year simulation, direct CRP costs total more than $388 billion, and the Inter-Governmental Task Force goal of hypoxic area less than 5000 square kilometers is met in only two years.
authors.affiliation: Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Corvallis, OR, United States. Electronic address: Jerry.Whittaker@ars.usda.gov.
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Whittaker
authors.affiliation: Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Corvallis, OR, United States.
authors.forename: Bradley L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Barnhart
authors.affiliation: Departments of Ecosystem Sciences and Management and Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University, United States.
authors.forename: Raghavan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.affiliation: Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Temple, TX, United States.
authors.forename: Jeffrey G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Arnold
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods; D017753:Ecosystem; D005068:Eutrophication; D060851:Gulf of America; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000032:analysis; D045483:Rivers; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: Agricultural incentive policy; Eutrophication; Gulf of Mexico; Hypoxia; Nonpoint source pollution