Economists must work together with scientists to address the problem of ‘dead zones’ such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico

The United States is home to the second largest hypoxic (or dead zone) in the world, in the Gulf of Mexico. Such zones have oxygen levels that are too low to support aquatic life, which can threaten local industry. Sergey Rabotyagov, Catherine Kling, Philip Gassman, Nancy Rabalais and R.Eugene Turner have made an in-depth study of the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, finding that a 30 percent reduction in the upstream nitrogen and phosphorus being introduced into the environment from agriculture and other industries would be enough to achieve the reductions desired by a federal and state action plan. They argue that these reductions will only be possible in concert with carefully designed economic and agricultural policies, and that economists must work closely with terrestrial and marine ecologists and other natural scientists to ensure these policies are cost effective.