Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2016-2017

Ph.D. Student, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics

Research Summary: My dissertation research involves analyzing the impacts of managing scarce natural resources with differing policy instruments. In particular, I study the economics of agricultural groundwater use in the Republican River Basin of Colorado. I utilize the modeling tools of microeconomics, agronomy and hydrology to investigate how differing conservation policies determine groundwater use behavior and agricultural profits. This integrated model simulates aquifer response to groundwater extraction to capture how groundwater use this year affects groundwater availability in future years. My dissertation research aims to use model results to inform stakeholders in eastern Colorado of the economic tradeoffs of differing conservation policies.