Australians consider novel water trading scheme

International Emissions Trading Scheme and EUropean Emissions Trading Scheme : what linkages ?

Simultaneity between commitment periods (2008-2012) of International Emissions Trading (IET) scheme and EUropean Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) is likely to generate distortions in terms of burden’s distribution among sectors. There will be two levels of trading : a country and an entity level, which both need to be consistent with each other. Besides, features of these two “cap and trade" e...

Water Quality Trading in Integrated Hydrologic Framework

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been pressing for this type of approach since the promulgation of its Water Quality Trading Policy in 2003, the intent of which is “to encourage voluntary trading programs that facilitate implementation of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), reduce the costs of compliance with Clean Water Act regulations, establish incentives for voluntary reduc...

EPA Water Quality Trading Evaluation: Final Report

Optimizing Trading Assignments in Water Right Markets

Over the past two decades, water markets have been successfully fielded in countries such as Australia, the United states, Chile, China, etc. Water users, mainly irrigators, have benefited immensely from water markets. However, the current water market design also faces certain serious barriers. It has been pointed out that transaction costs, which exists in most markets, induce great welfare l...

Crunch Time for Water Quality Trading

Economists have been promoting water quality (WQ) trading for decades. Over the past few years, many political leaders and upper-level government officials have been joining them. Money has even started to flow from Wash-ington to local trading organizations to help make WQ trading work. However, enthusiasm about WQ trading is based mostly on conceptual arguments about its potential to generate...