Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Contents
- The Contributors
- Figures
- Tables
- Glossary
- Preface
- Land degradation and government
- I Physical and biological aspects of land degradation
- II Social costs
- 4 Onsite costs of land degradation in agriculture and forestry
- 5 Offsite costs of land degradation
- 6 Degradation pressures from non-agricultural land uses
- III Legal, institutional and sociological factors
- IV Behavioural causes, economic issues and policy instruments
- V Pressure groups, public agencies and policy formulation
- VI Towards more effective policies for controlling land degradation: an overview
- A Rational approaches to environmental issues by Anthony Chisholm
- B Comments by Bruce Davidson
- C Comments by John Thomas
- D Participants at workshop on land degradation and public policy
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Offsite costs of land degradation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2012
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Contents
- The Contributors
- Figures
- Tables
- Glossary
- Preface
- Land degradation and government
- I Physical and biological aspects of land degradation
- II Social costs
- 4 Onsite costs of land degradation in agriculture and forestry
- 5 Offsite costs of land degradation
- 6 Degradation pressures from non-agricultural land uses
- III Legal, institutional and sociological factors
- IV Behavioural causes, economic issues and policy instruments
- V Pressure groups, public agencies and policy formulation
- VI Towards more effective policies for controlling land degradation: an overview
- A Rational approaches to environmental issues by Anthony Chisholm
- B Comments by Bruce Davidson
- C Comments by John Thomas
- D Participants at workshop on land degradation and public policy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘Soil erosion is the single most important environmental problem facing Australia today’
The quote is from the Hon John Kerin, Commonwealth Minister for Primary Industry, in Toowoomba in July 1983. It reflects an increasing and widespread recognition of land degradation as a national environmental problem of major dimensions. Indeed, from an economic perspective, land degradation shares a number of analytical similarities with traditional environmental problems such as pollution, but there are also some important differences. Land degradation is a complex phenomenon taking a variety of forms. It has effects which are often difficult to trace, measure and evaluate, and it has significance not just for individual landholders but for the community as a whole.
Other chapters in this monograph examine the physical aspects of land degradation, the legal and institutional setting and the contribution of different disciplines to formulating government policies. This chapter argues that an economic-based environmental perspective can help illuminate the problem and contribute to the development of practical and effective responses. It offers a framework for analysis of the social costs of land degradation and some thoughts on the way in which an awareness of these costs can assist government policy making.
This chapter focuses primarily on the offsite effects of land degradation, that is those which occur or are experienced away from the site of the action causing degradation. Examples include the costs of downstream salinity or turbidity. In economic terms these are externalities and they comprise a large part of the social costs of land degradation.
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- Information
- Land DegradationProblems and Policies, pp. 99 - 107Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988