HR: 16:30h
AN: H14A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Substitutions between Water and other Agricultural Inputs - An Empirical Analysis
AU: * Cai, X
EM: xmcai@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hydrosystems Lab 250 N. Mathews Av, Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AU: You, J
EM: jyou@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hydrosystems Lab 250 N. Mathews Av, Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AB: Increasing concerns about water availability, environmental water requirement and water quality have led to an increased importance of quantitative assessments of the substitution between water and other agricultural inputs at the margin for agricultural and environmental policy analysis. This paper explores the potential substitutions between water and other agricultural inputs in irrigated agriculture through an empirical study. The study include (1) an analysis based on a crop production function for net substitution at the crop field and farm levels; and (2) a numerical study for gross substitution in the context of water allocation in river basins thorough an integrated hydrologic-economic river basin model. Along with the empirical analysis and numerical illustrations, we discuss several theoretical issues relevant to substitutions between water and other inputs, such as (1) selection of indicators of elasticity of substitution, depending on farmers' concerns on yield, production, or profit; (2) appropriateness of net or gross substitution analysis, which is relevant to the spatial scale of the analysis (field, district or region), as well as farmers' concerns; and (3) output impact of substitutions. Water is both a natural resource and an economic input, and the constraints on water include those from both physical and socio-economic aspects. Therefore, the output impact of the substitution between water and other inputs should be extended from a pure economic concept to the context of integrated hydrologic-economic systems.
DE: 1884 Water supply
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
DE: 6334 Regional planning (1880)
DE: 6344 System operation and management
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005