Estimating the user cost of soil erosion in tea smallholdings in Sri Lanka
journal contribution
posted on 2001-01-01, 00:00authored byMudiyanselage Herath
Soil erosion in developing countries is a widespread problem causing considerable economic damage. It still remains an intractable problem in many countries. Available research findings on costs of soil erosion indicate them to be high. Soil erosion continues to be a problem due to the difficulties of estimating the economic damages and attendant difficulties in developing effective control policies. This paper considers soil to be a nonrenewable resource and estimates the marginal user costs using a yield damage function. Results indicate user costs to be low for individual farms. The low user costs are due to some of the assumptions made with respect to a number of parameters such as prices of tea, costs, and technological developments. The results also indicate that marginal user costs are sensitive to prices, soil depth and soil loss.
History
Journal
Australasian journal of regional studies
Volume
7
Issue
1
Pagination
97 - 111
Publisher
Australia and New Zealand Regional Science Association
Location
Armidale, N.S.W.
ISSN
1324-0935
Language
eng
Publication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal article