COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF DISCHARGE AND INPUT CONTROL FOR REDUCINGNITRATE POLLUTION

Nitrate pollution has caused serious environmental concerns, but its c ontrol is often complicated by its diff use nature. In most cases, nit rate control has been linked to either nitrogen input or leaching. By incorporating the relationship among land use, fertilizer application, and nitrogen leaching into a linear programming model, this analysis investigates the comparative effectiveness between input and leaching control. The empirical results from a groundwater catchment in eastern England suggest that leaching control can be more cost-effective in n itrate reduction than fertilizer input control. The implications for c ontrol of nitrate leaching through incentives systems are discussed.