Assessing the economic impacts of nutrient management

Professor Graeme Doole has been appointed Chair of Environment Economics, a new role funded by the University of Waikato and Ministry for the Environment.

In this role, Professor Doole is tasked with improving the country’s water quality. He will provide advice and training to Councils and Government on conducting economic analysis when developing water quality policies. He says economics and the environment are closely linked.

“When we come down to the nitty gritty, a lot of the important environmental questions are around economics. If we have to change the way we farm, that can inherently change our bottom lines and that’s really my role, to try and provide better estimates around the costs associated with deintensfying or intensifying our agricultural industries in different geographic areas of New Zealand” (from a recent Radio New Zealand Interview).

Professor Doole is co-author of the recently published report on assessing the profitability and productivity impacts of alternative nitrogen allocation methods on pastoral farming in the Lake Rotorua catchment. You can find this research report and other economic impact analyses relevant to the catchment here.