A reassessment of the economic effects of ozone on U.S. agriculture
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The potential adverse effects of environmental change on agriculture have motivated considerable public research on this topic. Acid deposition, gaseous air pollutants, stratosphere ozone depletion and 'green house' phenomena, individually and in combination, have been or are being evaluated in terms of effects on agricultural productivity. Assessments of the economic consequences of such effects have also been performed as input into the regulatory process. As with any applied bioeconomic analysis, the credibility of these economic assessments is dependent on the quality of the natural science and other data on the pollutant in question. The ability of economists to assess the agricultural effects of one important pollutant, tropospheric ozone, has been improved by the recently completed National Crop Loss Assessment Network (NCLAN). The structure, protocols and initial plant science findings of this U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program have been presented in this journal (see, for example, Heck et al). In a related article, we reported the economic consequences of those preliminary ozone crop yield effects. Summary plant science findings have now been published. We provide here a more complete analysis of estimated benefits from reductions in trophosphere ozone based on the final results of the NCLAN plant science research. In doing so, we concentrate on improvements in the modeling and underlying data which are reflected in this current assessment. While uncertainties still remain, these improvements should result in more defensible estimates of the magnitude of ozone's effects on U.S. agriculture.
