Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality

Keiser, David A.; Shapiro, Joseph

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3204658

Cited by 38 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Thus, following established statistical methods in applied economics, the relationship between water pollution and height ( b ) is identified by removing any confounding differences attributable to location and time. The reduced-form relationship provides a causal estimate of the health damages caused by downstream spillovers of pollution, adding to related work on pollution spillovers by Do et al (2018), Garg et al, (2018), Keiser and Shapiro (2018), Lipscomb and Mobarak (2017) and Sigman (2002Sigman ( , 2005.…”

Section: Empirical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…To circumvent this bias, we construct a measure of upstream pollution using the geography of river flow. Similar techniques to identify upstream-downstream relationships have been applied in recent economics literature (Garg et al, 2018' Do et al, 2018and Keiser, 2018. This choice is predicated on the fact that the decision to pollute upstream is orthogonal to downstream health, while geography dictates that pollution flows downstream.…”

Section: Matching Health Data To Water Quality Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In water, excess reactive nitrogen can promote the growth of algae, which can trigger toxic blooms that can kill fish, and nitrate in drinking water can harm human health. It is one of the few water pollutants that is trending upwards nearly everywhere, including in developed countries like the United States, despite strong regulation (Keiser and Shapiro 2018). The legacy effects of nitrogen pollution on 2…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital

Zaveri¹,

Russ²,

Desbureaux³

et al. 2020

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Section: Empirical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Matching Health Data To Water Quality Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital

Zaveri¹,

Russ²,

Desbureaux³

et al. 2020

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“…Countries around the world continue to pass regulations and adopt resource management strategies to reduce water pollution. In the United States, over $1 trillion has already been invested since the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act, but nearly half of the United States streams and rivers still do not meet the required pollution standards (Keiser & Shapiro, 2018). Similarly, the European Water Framework Directive which was launched in 2000 with the goal of achieving good qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies in the European Union is yet to meet its target with nearly 47% of the water bodies failing to achieve the aim (European Commission, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An improved process-based representation of stream solute transport in the soil and water assessment tools

Femeena

Chaubey

Aubeneau

et al. 2020

Hydrological Processes

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Hydrological models have long been used to study the interactions between land, surface and groundwater systems, and to predict and manage water quantity and quality. The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT), a widely used hydrological model, can simulate various ecohydrological processes on land and subsequently route the water quality constituents through surface and subsurface waters. So far, in-stream solute transport algorithms of the SWAT model have only been minimally revised, even though it has been acknowledged that an improvement of in-stream process representation can contribute to better model performance with respect to water quality. In this study, we aim to incorporate a new and improved solute transport model into the SWAT model framework. The new process-based model was developed using in-stream process equations from two well established models-the One-dimensional Transport with Inflow and Storage model and the Enhanced Stream Water Quality Model. The modified SWAT model (Mir-SWAT) was tested for water quality predictions in a study watershed in Germany. Compared to the standard SWAT model, Mir-SWAT improved dissolved oxygen (DO) predictions by removing extreme low values of DO (<6 mg/L) simulated by SWAT. Phosphate concentration peaks were reduced during high flows and a better match of daily predicted and measured values was attained using the Mir-SWAT model (R 2 = 0.17, NSE = −0.65, RSR = 1.29 with SWAT; R 2 = 0.28, NSE = −0.04, RSR = 1.02 with Mir-SWAT). In addition, Mir-SWAT performed better than the SWAT model in terms of Chlorophylla content particularly during winter months, improving the NSE and RSR for monthly average Chl-a by 74 and 42%, respectively. With the new model improvements, we aim to increase confidence in the stream solute transport component of the model, improve the understanding of nutrient dynamics in the stream, and to extend the applicability of SWAT for reach-scale analysis and management. K E Y W O R D S OTIS, QUAL2E, soil and water assessment tool, stream solute transport, SWAT, tracer test, transient storage, water quality model

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“…Despite some improvements, many of America's rivers, lakes and other surface waters remain impaired. In addition, recent assessments of benefits and costs have raised questions about the return on investment of water quality policy interventions (Keiser and Shapiro 2018), though measuring benefits is a difficult challenge (Keiser, Kling, and Shapiro 2019). A key reason for persistent water quality problems is that the CWA only targets point sources of pollution (e.g., factories and wastewater treatment plants that discharge pollution directly into a waterway), leaving virtually unregulated important nonpoint sources of water pollution such as fertilizer and pesticide runoff from agriculture.…”

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confidence: 99%

Introduction: U.S. environmental policy research in uncertain times

Konisky¹

2020

Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy

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The year 2020 marks several golden anniversaries in U.S. environmental policy. On July 9, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an administrative reorganization plan that created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Prior to that point, federal responsibilities for activities such as pollution control and chemicals regulation were limited in scope and scattered throughout different parts of the federal bureaucracy. The new EPA consolidated numerous existing federal authorities, including the National Air Pollution Control Administration, the Bureau of Water Hygiene, the Bureau of Solid Waste Management, and the Bureau on Radiological Health, from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Federal Water Quality Administration from the Department of the Interior (DOI), and three separate agencies responsible for pesticides control, including operations within the Department of Agriculture that had managed pesticide registrations (Williams 1993). This reorganization combined what had been disparate agencies, housed in different cabinet departments with varying organizational cultures, into a fledgling agency with a new shared mission to protect human health and the environment. It is also the 50-year anniversary of several legislative achievements in the area of environmental protection and natural resource management. On January 1, 1970, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law. This statute, inspired by the work of an Indiana University political scientist, Lynton Caldwell, created the White House Council on Environmental Quality to coordinate federal policy on the environment, and required federal agencies to prospectively consider the environmental impacts of their major decisions (Wertz 2014). By requiring agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of their actions, Congress signaled to the vast federal bureaucracy that agency decisions must at least be conscious of their environmental impacts. Later the same year, Congress passed the landmark federal Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1970. This statute, which former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy recently referred to as "one of the most successful public health laws ever enacted" (McCarthy and Burke 2017), systematically reshaped the U.S. approach to air pollution control. Responsibility for air quality before the 1970 CAA rested with state and local government authorities, most of which lacked the requisite institutional and financial capacity and/or the political will to meaningfully address increasingly severe air quality issues (Davies 1970). The CAA gave the federal government, and specifically the EPA, the authority to regulate air emissions from stationary (e.g., power plants, refineries, factories, etc.) and mobile (e.g., cars, trucks) sources of air pollution through a combination of prescriptive ambient and technology-based standards. Fifty years later, the EPA's use of the CAA still creates controversy, and regularly meets staunch opposition from many industry groups, but its programs have proven re...

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Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality

Cited by 38 publications

References 75 publications

The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital

The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital

An improved process-based representation of stream solute transport in the soil and water assessment tools

Introduction: U.S. environmental policy research in uncertain times

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