Sylvain Chabé-Ferret, Ingénieur de recherches INRAE-Chercheur TSE

Le séminaire du jeudi 2 mai 2024 est animé par Sylvain Chabé-Ferret, Ingénieur de recherches INRAE - Chercheur à Toulouse School of Economics, TSE.

• Inférence causale ;
• Paiements pour services environnementaux ;
• Politiques de l’emploi.

voir son CV

Titre de sa présentation : Water Quality, Policy Diffusion Effects and Farmers' Behavior, article co-écrit avec Annie Ouin, Arnaud Reynaud et Eva Tène, Toulouse School of Economics.

Résumé : The nitrogen cycle is one of the most disrupted geo-chemical cycles on Earth. Human activity, mainly through intensive farming, releases nitrogen by-products such as nitrates into the environment where they have wide ranging impacts on human health, biodiversity and climate change. One of the earliest and most ambitious regulations of nitrogen use in the world is the EU Nitrate Directive, which regulates the application and storage of manure; promotes the adoption of modern nitrogen management tools such as the nitrogen balance method; and requires the planting of cover crops during the winter and of grass buffer strips along rivers to reduce nitrogen runoffs. We use geographical and temporal variation in the implementation of the Nitrate Directive in France as a natural experiment to estimate its causal effects on water quality, biodiversity and farmers’ practices and productivity. We find that the EU Nitrate Directive reduced the concentration of nitrates in surface water by 1.23 milligrams per liter (a decrease of 8%), with impacts of up to 2.28 mg/l where 100% of the upstream area is covered by the Directive. We also find that the Directive decreased eutrophication and increased aquatic biodiversity as measured by the number of fish and the number of fish species. Finally, we find that the Directive improved farmers’ nitrogen use efficiency and productivity. Our results suggest that other countries in the world whose waters are severely affected by nitrate pollution could benefit from passing regulations similar to the Nitrate Directive.

Le séminaire a lieu a 13h30 en salle 227.