Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
costs is important: is an increase in quality of landscape considered as a (monetary)
benefit? (Reinhard, 2005). Also the decision about which methods are used to calculate
environmental benefits is important. Therefore the economic analysis needs to be
integrated with the decision making process; it has to provide information and knowledge
to aid decision-making (Wateco, 2003).
When identifying possible measures, it is important to realise that not all possible
instruments are suitable for regional implementation. Many instruments can be more
efficiently and effectively implemented at national (or EU) level. Choosing a spatial scale
and also a time period for analysing costs, benefits and cost-effectiveness influences to a
certain extent the cost-effectiveness of the measures.
To enhance a level playing field for European agriculture, regional differences in
WFD policy instruments should be related to the variation in, for instance, regional
emissions of agriculture. Also it is important that all relevant measures are taken into
account. In the Netherlands measures affecting traffic guard-rails and zinc roofs were not
seriously considered in the preliminary analysis. They were assumed to be too costly,
while special attention was give to agriculture. If these measures are indeed
disproportionate it will be revealed by the CEA. When measures per sector are analysed,
it is important to be aware of investments made in the past, to prevent certain sectors from
benefiting from 'low hanging fruit' (no prior investments made), while other sectors
which had to make previous investments can only contribute to the goals of the WFD by
finally implementing the least cost-effective investments. Past investments by different
sectors must somehow be incorporated into this analysis: for example, the efforts made
by the agriculture sector in the field of nitrate regulation. This also applies to distribution
of costs between different countries in the same river basin. Agreement at the
international level is important in this aspect. Also here a decision on methodology will
have major consequences for different sectors and different countries.
Regional water managers (provinces and water-boards) have to perform a cost-
effectiveness analysis (CEA) to select the most effective and efficient measures to
achieve the objectives of the WFD. It is not clear at which aggregation level the analysis
will be done. If the CEA will be performed at the water body level (a water body could be
(part of) a river, lake, groundwater), approximately 1000 CEA analyses have to be done
for different objectives and various measures. It will be clear that the optimal aggregation
level of the CEA will be a weighing between a low level which allows more local
expertise to be put in the analysis but will cost a lot of money and a high level in which a
lot of general information is used, but which will cost less. Another disadvantage of
performing CEA at water body level is that only benefits are included that exist within
that water body. It will be clear that for an efficient CEA, national information on the
average effectiveness and impact of measures will be provided. For point-source
pollution (sewage-clean installations) this average information will be suitable. However,
for the diffuse agricultural emissions of nutrients, average effectiveness and costs
information can be far from realised effectiveness and costs. A simple analysis based on
fact sheets of measures will not provide all this relevant information about impacts of
measures for diffuse agricultural emissions. Hence, model-based analysis at a higher
aggregation level (to capture also market equilibrium) is essential to capture all relevant
agricultural effects.
A cost-effectiveness analysis determines the costs necessary to achieve the given
objective. The bundle of measures with minimum costs is preferred. At the same time it is
useful to identify measures that serve multiple goals — for instance, have an effect on
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