Costs and benefits of capturing urban runoff with competitive bidding for decentralized best management practices

Urban storm water runoff is both a source of pollution and a potentially valuable resource. Centralized facilities traditionally have been used to manage runoff. Decentralized best management practice (BMP) options may be able to avoid the costs of purchasing expensive urban land needed for centrali...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources research 2008-09, Vol.44 (9), p.n/a
Main Authors: Cutter, W. Bowman, Baerenklau, Kenneth A., DeWoody, Autumn, Sharma, Ritu, Lee, Joong Gwang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bidding
incentives
infiltration
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Urban storm water runoff is both a source of pollution and a potentially valuable resource. Centralized facilities traditionally have been used to manage runoff. Decentralized best management practice (BMP) options may be able to avoid the costs of purchasing expensive urban land needed for centralized facilities. We investigate the cost effectiveness of implementing BMPs in a Los Angeles area watershed with two voluntary incentive mechanisms: competitive bidding and a fixed subsidy. The subsidy mechanism has lower BMP placement costs but generates relatively large excess profits for landowners. The bidding mechanism has higher BMP placement costs but generates smaller excess profits and tends to be more cost effective for the regulator, particularly at higher runoff capture levels. We also compare the costs of bidding and centralized alternatives and find that the bidding alternative is significantly less costly than a centralized alternative for a range of storm water capture goals. Finally, we examine the value of infiltrated storm water and find that it is up to 38% of total BMP costs.
ISSN:0043-1397
1944-7973
DOI:10.1029/2007WR006343