Nonpoint-Source Pollution and Land Use
in the Patuxent Watershed
While a range of land use policies such as Maryland's Smart Growth Initiative aim at curbing urban sprawl and protecting natural resources, their effects on the economy and the environment, particularly the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, are less clear. Researcher Nancy Bockstael and her colleagues believe that such policies can affect landowner decision making and thus lead to altered land use practices. They are using ecological and economic computer models to predict how proposed land use policies will affect development and ultimately water quality in the Patuxent River watershed.
Bockstael and her team are employing an economic model they developed to predict economic growth and population pressures for the Patuxent watershed region; the economic forecasts generated by that model will be linked to a Patuxent ecological model that is designed to predict nutrient flow as a function of land use patterns. The researchers are integrating the two models so that they will be able to simulate how policies are likely to alter land use in five, ten and twenty years. If successful, their methods and results will aid officials in making difficult land use decisions.
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Nancy E. Bockstael
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of Maryland, College Park
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