Value of land as a pollutant sink for international waters

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the values of a margina l change in the area of land as a pollutant sink under different decision-m aking contexts and objectives: international coordination versus national p olicies for pollutant reduction, and maximization of net benefits versus mi nimization of costs for pollutant reductions. The analytical results show t hat a coordinated policy between countries generates a higher value of a ma rginal change in the supply of land as a pollutant sink than an uncoordinat ed policy. It is also shown that the value is lower (higher) under the deci sion objective of maximizing net benefits when the efficient pollutant load is higher (lower) than the load target under the cost effectiveness approa ch. An application to the Baltic Sea drainage basin land as a nitrogen sink for the management of eutrophication reveals that the differences between values under different policy contexts and objectives can be quite large in magnitude. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.