Agricultural Non-point Source Pollution Control And Management Policies

The water quality of the main lakes and rivers in China, especially for the eutrophication caused by nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), has been worsening dramatically in recent years. And the water shortage caused by the descending of water quality has brought about great losses for the production, human activity and economy in these areas. As we know, the dominant reason of the eutrophication of water quality is agricultural non-point source (ANPS) pollution. Therefore, ANPS pollution control has become a great problem on agriculture and rural development during the period of 11th Five-Year Plan. Meanwhile, it is also one of the important issues in the ongoing project of "New-Countryside Construction".The control and management of ANPS pollution in China is still at the initial stages presently. The key issue for the Chinese government is neither the lack of knowledge about ANPS pollution nor the lack of technologies to control it. A proper policy frame and the matching systems on ANPS pollution control are needed. Meanwhile, few institutions disseminate information on the cause of ANPS pollution and its prevention methods to farmers, or encourage and promote fanners to adopt effective technologies and management methods.The wide research results of agronomy, environmental and information science were combined and applied in this study. And the dominant objective was to study the policy frame on the control and management of ANPS pollution from the view of environmental economics and science of management. Based on the expatiation on correlative theory and methods, the key issues, such as the cause of ANPS pollution, characteristics of ANPS pollution, the main harm to human and environment, and the control and management of ANPS pollution, were all analyzed in this study. Moreover, Pinghu County was selected as the case study to investigate and analyze the ANPS pollution elaborately. As for the questions on ANPS pollution needed to be resolved urgently, a synthetical management policy frame was brought out in this study, after farmer investigation, model building, policy simulation and learning advanced experiences in other countries. Meanwhile, the adaptive technologies and management policy were also suggested in this study.This paper includes 8 chapters. Chapter 1 presented the study background and main objectives, the basic concepts and the research subject, and defined the key problems that the research would resolve, the research methods and contents, meanwhile, the major innovation and disadvantages were also concluded in this chapter. In Chapter 2, the literatures about the theories for ANPS pollution control policy in the last decades were reviewed. From the economics viewpoint, the essence of the ANPS pollution and the special requirement of policy making were analyzed in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the cause, characteristics, harm, environmental cost andcontrol actuality of ANPS pollution in China were analyzed. Meanwhile, as for the fact of severe ANPS pollution at present, the existing problems and the reasons were further analyzed. The case study for the Pinghu County in Zhejiang Province was in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6. Based on the investigation and elaborate study on the basic situation of ANPS pollution, the emphases was focused on a typical village group and an example of N loss. The data were obtained through farmer investigation, and a bio-economic household model was built by linear programming method. Based on this model, the efficiency of the four policies to control the N loss was simulated. The results showed that, considering the policies which influences the net incomes for farmers, the taxis from priority to inferiority were: subsidy(S4), input tax (SI), popularizing new technology (S3) and ban (S2);while in terms of the effect of controlling the N loss, the taxis from priority to inferiority were: subsidy (S4), ban (S2), popularizing new technology (S3) and input tax (SI), and each policy has somewhat impact on controlling the N loss. In Chapter 7, the author mainly introduced and analyzed the experiences and lessons on the control and management of ANPS pollution in other countries such as America, Canada, New Zealand and European Union, and some useful enlightenment were summarized in this chapter. In Chapter 8, an integrated management policy framework including R&D, education, extension and legislation was designed according to the situation of ANPS pollution in Pinghu County. Moreover, some proper opinions to other areas were suggested in this chapter.