Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2019CO037B

Selecting cost-effective water quality management practices under climate change

Institute: Colorado
Year Established: 2019 Start Date: 2019-03-01 End Date: 2020-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $4,951 Total Non-Federal Funds: $2,575

Principal Investigators: Jordan Suter

Project Summary: Growing concerns about the excessive nutrient loadings and Colorado’s 10-year water quality roadmap motivate us to propose this research project, and search for the cost-effective water quality management for sub-watersheds in the Lower Arkansas River Basin. This project provides a great collaboration opportunity for students from Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. A hydro-economic analysis, integrating the comprehensive hydrological modeling and economic spatial optimization at field level, will be conducted for sub-watersheds of interest to estimate the social cost for achieving water quality targets under climate uncertainty. We will also explore the potential for water quality/nutrient credits trading in these sub-watersheds. This research is designed to help developing the State’s nutrient reduction plan, and we expect to present our results on the annual meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in summer 2019 and the annual Graduate Student Showcase at CSU in November 2019.