The use of market-based approaches for watershed conservation has expanded rapidly in recent years and has been promoted as an efficient way to improve water supply, water quality and flow regulation while also improving aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Under simple Payment for Watershed Services (PWS) schemes, downstream users of watershed services pay upstream land managers to implement restoration and conservation practices thought to improve the provisioning of watershed services. However, the impacts of PWS programs are largely unknown as monitoring and evaluation practices are often inadequate to clearly demonstrate improvements in service provisioning, inhibiting adaptive management and threatening the economic sustainability of programs by limiting additional investments by services users. Using surveys and semi-structured interviews with program managers, I explore the characteristics of various PWS programs to identify drivers and obstacles for adopting robust monitoring and evaluation protocols. We investigate programs in both the United States and Costa Rica to determine how these drivers and obstacles vary in these particular environmental, socioeconomic and regulatory contexts. Furthermore, we assess the implications of monitoring and evaluation practices for adaptive management and program sustainability.
Results/Conclusions
Interviews with five institutions engaged with PWS in Costa Rica revealed that NGOs engaged in grassroots PWS efforts are conducting the most robust monitoring efforts. This monitoring appears to be driven by the need to demonstrate the efficacy of their work to donors to ensure continued funding. However, adaptive management is not being used and Costa Ricans interviewed were generally unfamiliar with the concept. We surveyed 35 institutions in the United States. While having a variety of conservation goals, maintaining water quality and water supply were most commonly prioritized. Of the organizations targeting water quality and supply, only 52% are monitoring these watershed services. Although the literature argues that the invisible hand of the market will ensure monitoring occurs, more “market-like” programs generally had weak monitoring practices. Despite limited monitoring, 77% of organizations indicated that they were using adaptive management, suggesting that practitioners do not have a clear understanding of the concept. Considering the rapid expansion of PWS programs worldwide and the widespread uncertainty regarding efficacy, this study clearly demonstrates the need for more robust monitoring and adaptive management practices among market-based programs and points to a potential avenue for meaningful academic engagement in these efforts.