Project
Living on Soft Soils (LOSS)
Land subsidence is a complex problem in the Dutch lowlands for cities and polder land. Beyond that it is a problem for many delta regions of the world. As the land is sinking, costs to maintain its functionality grow. The speed of land subsidence is influenced by human activities such as regulating groundwater levels. This makes land subsidence essentially a resource management problem stretching out over a very long time (centuries).
Results
We develop a dynamic optimisation model. Applying our model to the paradigm case of Dutch agricultural peatlands, we find that accounting for dynamic efficiency increases welfare by more than 2.5 percent compared to a myopic policy benchmark, and these gains can be about 10 percent within reasonable parameter ranges. Our results support current proposals to reduce subsidence, even without considering additional social benefits from avoided carbon dioxide emissions.