MODELING REGIONAL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND SALINITY CONTROL ALTERNATIVES FOR WATER-QUALITY POLICY ANALYSIS

Water development and allocation to competing uses without well-define d water quality rights contribute to water use externalities. Federal legislation to address the salinity externalities in the Colorado Rive r Basin comprises a set of arbitrary quality standards and millions of dollars in federal projects. This study specifies economic criteria t o empirically determine first- and second-best quality standards and t o indicate opportunities for efficiency gains in existing policy. A ba sin-wide, nonlinear programming model optimizes river water quality, r esource allocation, production levels, and total expenditures for cont rol, Revealed are the economic tradeoffs between water uses, regions, and control strategies.