Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2002CA4B

Voluntary Compliance Versus Mandatory Sanctions: A Natural Experiment in Water Quality Regulation

Institute: California
Year Established: 2002 Start Date: 2002-03-01 End Date: 2003-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $10,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $15,495

Principal Investigators: Paul Sabatier

Project Summary: Paul Sabatier PI Dept of Environmental Science & Policy, Davis campus email: pasabatier@ucdavis.edu phone: 530-752-8898 The PI will share with 4 other PIs from California in the award allocation. The research will evaluate the voluntary compliance approach to water quality regulation being practiced in the dairy and livestock industries in counties north of San Francisco Bay. It will explore the relative effectiveness of voluntary compliance versus manditory sanctions and how compliance has improved water quality. It will explore which of the hypothesized mechanisms are important e.g. education and outreach, promoting an environmental ethic, trust-building. The research will include an original analysis of 9 years of water quality data and an original survey of all dairy and livestock producers in the region.