This study looks at land use allocation and wetland management on an agricultural landscape in the Canadas Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) within the context of social, ecological and economic factors. Policy considerations for the conservation of wetlands on an agricultural landscape are examined with a focus on financial incentive-based policy tools. Empirical research looks at the influences on wetland management and the potential for economic incentives in wetland policy. In addition, a spatial approach was employed to develop specific wetland conservation targeting scenarios for two case study farms in two distinct agricultural regions of Saskatchewan. Each targeting scenario was investigated to determine the potential effect on ecological goods and services, particularly carbon sequestration, as well as farm income over time. A hypothetical financial incentive-based wetland conservation program was developed looking at the potential of interplay with private carbon markets.<p>Land productivity, which is directly related to farm profitability, was the most important factor in predicting farmer participation in wetland conservation voluntarily (P<0.05). However, participation in the Environmental Farm Plan program, which provides financial incentives, was influenced by demographic factors such as age and farm size (P<0.01) while land productivity had no influence. This indicates that financial incentives may encourage farmers to participate in wetland conservation practices that otherwise would not. The spatial targeting scenarios indicated that trade-offs exist between economic and ecological optimization, the most effective strategies have the highest level of benefits relative to costs and will be readily adopted by farmers. Results also indicate that the publicly funded portion of wetland conservation program payments can be reduced by up to 20% when there is interplay with private carbon markets.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-05202008-171738 |
| Date | 26 May 2008 |
| Creators | Cuddington, Amber Dawne |
| Contributors | Fulton, Murray E., Farnese, Patricia L., Clark, Robert G., Belcher, Kenneth W., Pennock, Dan J. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-05202008-171738/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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