Pollution control for a spatially structured economic growth system

Abstract

In this paper investigations by the same authors on environmental issues concerning the control of the pollution produced by human activities have been extended to include costs related to environmental interventions.

The proposed model consists of a spatially structured dynamic model which takes into account the level of pollution induced by human activities and possible environmental interventions, including taxation. An optimal harvesting control problem has been discussed, with an objective function composed of four terms, namely the intertemporal utility of the decision maker, the space-time average of the level of pollution in the habitat, the disutility due to the imposition of taxation and the cost of environmental interventions.

A specific novelty in the model proposed here is the localization of the possible interventions to a subregion of the whole habitat.

Computational experiments have been carried out to exemplify the outcomes of the proposed model.