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Abstract
Thermal water quality trading is an emerging policy tool that allows thermal polluters to comply with effluent restrictions by paying nearby landowners to plant shade trees. We created a system dynamics model of a hypothetical thermal trading program and conducted scenario analysis to study how weather, climate, and trading behavior might influence program effectiveness. It is likely that neither thermal trading nor conventional regulation can reduce water temperatures to desired levels, but the model indicates that trading ratios, used to account for uncertainty, lead programs to decrease water temperatures below those produced through conventional regulation.
8. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge input to this research from Andrew Ford at Washington State University. The National Science Foundation and Washington State University provided support for this research. We also acknowledge postdoctoral support from Sandia National Laboratories, which facilitated the submission of this article.