scholarly journals Peer Review #1 of "The effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services at delivering improvements in water quality: lessons for experiments at the landscape scale (v0.2)"

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Wunder
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Payments For Ecosystem Services

scholarly journals The effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services at delivering improvements in water quality: lessons for experiments at the landscape scale

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin L. Pynegar ◽  
Julia P.G. Jones ◽  
James M. Gibbons ◽  
Nigel M. Asquith
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Environmental Management ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Randomised Trial ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Payments For Ecosystem Services ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Management Interventions

BackgroundRandomised Control Trials (RCTs) are used in impact evaluation in a range of fields. However, despite calls for their greater use in environmental management, their use to evaluate landscape scale interventions remains rare. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) incentivise land users to manage land to provide environmental benefits. We present the first RCT evaluation of a PES program aiming to improve water quality.Watersharedis a program which incentivises landowners to avoid deforestation and exclude cattle from riparian forests. Using this unusual landscape-scale experiment we explore the efficacy ofWatersharedat improving water quality, and draw lessons for future RCT evaluations of landscape-scale environmental management interventions.MethodsOne hundred and twenty-nine communities in the Bolivian Andes were randomly allocated to treatment (offeredWatersharedagreements) or control (not offered agreements) following baseline data collection (includingEscherichia colicontamination in most communities) in 2010. We collected end-line data in 2015. Using our end-line data, we explored the extent to which variables associated with the intervention (e.g. cattle exclusion, absence of faeces) predict water quality locally. We then investigated the efficacy of the intervention at improving water quality at the landscape scale using the RCT. This analysis was done in two ways; for the subset of communities for which we have both baseline and end-line data from identical locations we used difference-in-differences (matching on baseline water quality), for all sites we compared control and treatment at end-line controlling for selected predictors of water quality.ResultsThe presence of cattle faeces in water adversely affected water quality suggesting excluding cattle has a positive impact on water quality locally. However, both the matched difference-in-differences analysis and the comparison between treatment and control communities at end-line suggestedWatersharedwas not effective at reducingE. colicontamination at the landscape scale. Uptake ofWatersharedagreements was very low and the most important land from a water quality perspective (land around water intakes) was seldom enrolled.DiscussionAlthough excluding cattle may have a positive local impact on water quality, higher uptake and better targeting would be required to achieve a significant impact on the quality of water consumed in the communities. Although RCTs potentially have an important role to play in building the evidence base for approaches such as PES, they are far from straightforward to implement. In this case, the randomised trial was not central to concluding thatWatersharedhad not produced a landscape scale impact. We suggest that this RCT provides valuable lessons for future use of randomised experiments to evaluate landscape-scale environmental management interventions.

scholarly journals Payments for Ecosystem Services

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-228
Author(s):  
James Salzman ◽  
Genevieve Bennett ◽  
Nathaniel Carroll ◽  
Allie Goldstein ◽  
Michael Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Pest Control ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Payments For Ecosystem Services ◽  
Climate Stability ◽  
Positive Externalities ◽  
Living Organisms

While we don’t tend to think about it, healthy ecosystems provide a variety of critical benefits. Ecosystem goods, the physical items an ecosystem provides, are obvious. Forests provide timber; coastal marshes provide shellfish. While less visible and generally taken for granted, the services underpinning these goods are equally important. Created by the interactions of living organisms with their environment, ecosystem services provide the conditions and processes that sustain human life.1 If you doubt this, consider how to grow an apple without pollination, pest control, or soil fertility. Once one realizes the importance of ecosystem services, three points quickly emerge: (1) landscapes provide a stream of services ranging from water quality and flood control to climate stability—the economic value of which can be significant; (2) the vast majority of these services are public goods and not exchanged in markets, so landowners have little incentive to provide these positive externalities; and (3) we, therefore, need to think creatively about creating markets for these services so they are not under-provided. This is the basis of the policy approach known as Payments for Ecosystem Services (“PES”).

scholarly journals Water funds and payments for ecosystem services: practice learns from theory and theory can learn from practice

Oryx ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca L. Goldman-Benner ◽  
Silvia Benitez ◽  
Timothy Boucher ◽  
Alejandro Calvache ◽  
Gretchen Daily ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Service Provider ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Payments For Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Trust Fund

AbstractPayments for ecosystem services (PES) are emerging worldwide as important mechanisms to align investments in human and natural well-being. PES projects are often defined as voluntary transactions where well-defined environmental/ecosystem services (or land uses likely to secure those services) are bought by a minimum of one service buyer, from a minimum of one service provider, if and only if the service provider continuously secures service provision (conditionality). Further criteria of PES include limiting additional objectives and ensuring that payments reward behaviour that would otherwise not occur (additionality). Together these best practices for PES are increasingly accepted as the most efficient means to achieve desired outcomes and are guiding funding for PES projects. We used a series of water funds (watershed-oriented PES projects based on a trust fund model) to examine how theoretical best practices could inform and improve practice and also how theory could learn from practical efforts. We conclude that thoughtful consideration is required when evaluating the promise of a PES approach against a theoretical ideal. We found that requiring conditionality may limit the use of creative finance mechanisms such as trust funds that can provide long-term benefits for conservation and human well-being, and that requiring additionality can exclude benefits from social diffusion and result in the inefficient targeting of PES funds. Finally, public–private partnerships in water funds lead to multiple additional/side objectives but partnerships are likely to lower transaction costs and provide transparent, long-term landscape-scale watershed management.

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