Agricultural Salinity Pollution California

This research paper presents a scalable decision support model to manage salinity pollution in California's San Joaquin River, evaluating 64 combinations of policy interventions including fees and water use restrictions to balance environmental sustainability with agricultural profitability.

• The study evaluated 64 different combinations of policy interventions involving water use restrictions and fees. While all these scenarios resulted in lower net revenues compared to the base case, none resulted in negative net revenues because subareas were able to adapt by shifting to high-revenue crops, increasing groundwater use, and fallowing land.
• The research found that restrictions on surface water lead to an increase in salinity loads due to a corresponding increase in groundwater usage. To counter this, the authors suggest that fees for imported water could help farmers keep salinity loads lower while remaining profitable, and that market-based pollution permit trading could help maintain revenue during periods of severe surface water scarcity.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2022). Agricultural Salinity Pollution California. https://www.sei.org/publications/agricultural-salinity-pollution-california/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Agricultural Salinity Pollution California. 2022. https://www.sei.org/publications/agricultural-salinity-pollution-california/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Agricultural Salinity Pollution California |date=16 June 2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/agricultural-salinity-pollution-california/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2022agricultural, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Agricultural Salinity Pollution California}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/agricultural-salinity-pollution-california/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }