Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Seong Yun

Committee Member

Matthew Interis

Committee Member

Edward Yu

Date of Degree

8-6-2021

Original embargo terms

Visible to MSU only for 6 months

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Agriculture Economics

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Agricultural Economics

Abstract

Biofuel production-driven land-use change in agricultural land can have impacts on ecosystem services. Since there is no planned mandate after the Renewable Fuel Standard, there are questions about what implications will future land-use changes have on water quality and how do water quality changes, resulting from potential bioenergy scenarios, affect changes in people's well-being? To answer these questions, I will estimate the value of the predicted changes in water quality under biofuel policy scenarios in counties inside the Mississippi River Basin. From this study, I found that as the percent of land-use changes increase across each county, water quality decreased. I also found that for every unit increase for the change in water quality index, the percentage of individuals' willingness to pay for a change in water quality would increase. The predicted willingness to pay for a change in water quality for a given household varied from -$72 to $143.

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