Economic and Environmental Costs and Benefits of Living Snow Fences: Safety, Mobility, and Transportation Authority Benefits, Farmer Costs, and Carbon Impacts
2012-02
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Economic and Environmental Costs and Benefits of Living Snow Fences: Safety, Mobility, and Transportation Authority Benefits, Farmer Costs, and Carbon Impacts
Published Date
2012-02
Publisher
Minnesota Department of Transportation
Type
Report
Abstract
Blowing and drifting snow on Minnesota's roadways is a transportation efficiency and safety concern. Establishing
standing corn rows and living snow fences improves driver visibility, road surface conditions, and has the potential
to lower costs of road maintenance as well as accidents attributed to blowing and drifting snow. It also has the
potential to sequester carbon and avoid the carbon emissions of snow removal operations. In recent years the
Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has paid farmers to leave standing corn rows to protect
identified snow problem roadways. They have paid farmers $1.50 per bushel above market price. With increasing
demand for corn to fuel the ethanol industry, paying $1.50 per bushel above market price may not be sufficient
incentive for leaving standing corn rows. Also, with MnDOT’s memorandum of understanding with USDA to plant
living snow fences through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), now is an opportune time to review
MnDOT’s annual payment structure to farmers and prepare a new one. This project has: 1) developed a calculator
to estimate payments for farmers that includes consideration of safety and snow removal cost savings; 2) estimated
potential income from carbon payments; 3) worked closely with MnDOT engineers and plow operators, estimated
the safety and snow removal costs and carbon emissions avoided by MnDOT through establishing living snow
fences; and 4) evaluated farmers’ willingness to establish living snow fences and identified farmers/landowners’
constraints to adoption. Data is provided to MnDOT to assist staff in its decision making related to their Living
Snow Fence Program.
Description
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Funding information
University of Minnesota Extension; Minnesota Department of Transportation
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Wyatt, Gary; Zamora, Diomy; Smith, David; Schroeder, Sierra; Paudel, Dinesh; Knight, Joe; Kilberg, Don; Current, Dean; Gullickson, Dan; Taff, Steve. (2012). Economic and Environmental Costs and Benefits of Living Snow Fences: Safety, Mobility, and Transportation Authority Benefits, Farmer Costs, and Carbon Impacts. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/146922.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.