Cascading costs:An economic nitrogen cycle

作     者：William R.Moomaw Melissa B.L.Birch 

作者机构：Fletcher School Tufts UniversityMedfordMA 02155USA 

出 版 物：《Science China(Life Sciences)》 (中国科学（生命科学英文版）)

年 卷 期：2005年第48卷第Z2期

页      面：678-696页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 09[农学] 0903[农学-农业资源与环境] 0713[理学-生态学] 

主　　题：cascading costs, chemical nitrogen cascade, economic nitrogen cascade, mitigation costs, damage costs,economic nitrogen cycle. 

摘      要：The chemical nitrogen cycle is becoming better characterized in terms of fluxes and reservoirs on a variety of scales. Galloway has demonstrated that reactive nitrogen can cascade through multiple ecosystems causing environmental damage at each stage before being denitrified to N2. We propose to construct a parallel economic nitrogen cascade (ENC) in which economic impacts of nitrogen fluxes can be estimated by the costs associated with each stage of the chemical cascade. Using economic data for the benefits of damage avoided and costs of mitigation in the Chesapeake Bay basin, we have constructed an economic nitrogen cascade for the region. Since a single tonne of nitrogen can cascade through the system, the costs also cascade. Therefore evaluating the benefits of mitigating a tonne of reactive nitrogen released needs to consider the damage avoided in all of the ecosystems through which that tonne would cascade. The analysis reveals that it is most cost effective to remove a tonne of nitrogen coming from combustion since it has the greatest impact on human health and creates cascading damage through the atmospheric, terrestrial, aquatic and coastal ecosystems. We will discuss the implications of this analysis for determining the most cost effective policy option for achieving environmental quality goals.