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Non-point source pollution is deteriorating water quality throughout the world. New Zealand is addressing this issue by regulating land-based nutrient losses, with debates over how to allocate limits across a heterogeneous landscape. We develop a spatially explicit economic land use model to investigate efficiency and equity issues from seven approaches to allocate nutrient discharges across two New Zealand watersheds. We find that the preferred allocation differs across land use, land characteristics, and regulation stringency; and that there is no universal ‘best’ allocation option. Therefore, decision-makers should focus on, at least, efficiency and equity, and on how to compensate those most affected.

A recent paper by Doole and Marsh (2013), questioned the validity of using the New Zealand Forest and Agriculture Regional Model (NZFARM) for New Zealand agri-environmental policy analysis. We respond to their critique by clearly describing the model structure, explaining the NZFARM parameterisation, calibration, and validation procedure, and presenting estimates from a series of nutrient reduction policy scenarios to highlight the utility of the model. In doing so, we demonstrate that NZFARM generates logical and intuitive results that can be used for robust agri-environmental policy decision-making.

This study examines the impact of flood-hazard zone location on residential property prices. The study utilises data from over 2000 private residential property sales occurred during 2006 in North Shore City, New Zealand. A spatial autoregressive hedonic model is developed to provide efficient estimates of the marginal effect of flood prone risks on property prices. Results suggest that the sale price of a residential property within a flood prone area is lower than an equivalent property outside the flood prone area. The flood plain location discount is reduced by the release of public information regarding flood risk.