Dl. Hoag, THE INTERTEMPORAL IMPACT OF SOIL-EROSION ON NONUNIFORM SOIL PROFILES - A NEW DIRECTION IN ANALYZING EROSION IMPACTS, Agricultural systems, 56(4), 1998, pp. 415-429
Soil erosion studies by economists have utilized relatively simple yie
ld response functions compared to productivity simulation models used
by soil scientists in order to endogenously solve for optimal manageme
nt schemes. This paper combines the optimization techniques of previou
s economic studies with a more complex measure of soil productivity th
an simply soil depth which has been used previously. An illustrative m
odel demonstrates how erosion affects different types of soil profiles
found in the United States and isolates three different ways that ero
sion can impact productivity. Estimation procedures that do not accoun
t for the non-uniform nature of soil profiles can misstate the impact
of soil erosion on cropland productivity. The framework, though perhap
s overly simplified for direct use, disentangles the impacts of soil e
rosion into substitution, mixing and depth effects and suggests how va
ried profiles should be managed in different ways according to how eac
h is impacted by erosion. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re
served.