Fish, Farmers, Floods, and Institutions: The Joint Management of Freshwater and Marine Ecosystems

This paper examines the tradeoffs between the production of crops and habitat for juvenile salmon, through flood events, on a floodplain in California. I investigate how changes in the floodplain institution, overseeing the flood events, and in the fishery institution affect the economic returns to fish habitat. To understand how habitat provision affects the economic surplus of the farmers and fishers, I develop a bioeconomic model of the floodplain agriculture, salmon population, and California ocean fishery. The results reveal large total producer surplus’ gains from coordinating the two institutions to jointly manage the freshwater and marine ecosystems. In contrast with previous studies on open access resources, I find that the gains from improving habitat management exceed those that arise from improving the existing quota system. These findings provide important insights for fisheries management as efforts have traditionally focused on improving quotas systems.