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The concept of payments for ecosystem services (PES) has recently emerged as a promising tool for enhancing or safeguarding the provision of ecosystem services (ES). Although the concept has been extensively scrutinized in terms of its potential positive and negative impacts on the poor in developing countries, less attention has been paid to examining the role of PES in the context of adaptation to climate change. PES has some potential to contribute to adaptation to climate change, but there are also risks that it could undermine adaptation efforts. In order to maximize synergies and minimize trade-offs between PES and adaptation, it is important that the conceptual links between both are made explicit. The present article presents the main conceptual links between PES and adaptation to climate change and suggests ways of making PES pro-poor and pro-adaptation. Drawing upon the concepts of vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and socioecological systems, it is suggested that PES can potentially contribute to adaptation in three main ways: through enhancements in the provision of ecosystem services, by enhancing adaptive capacity in the way PES is designed and implemented, and by providing an incentive mechanism to adopt specific measures for adaptation to climate change. Reflecting on the lessons from the PES and poverty literature, the article suggests ways to make PES pro-poor and pro-adaptation and concludes with further research needs in this area

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ABSTRACT. Climate change presents new challenges for the management of social-ecological systems and the ecosystem services they provide. Although the instrument of payments for ecosystem services (PES) has emerged as a promising tool to safeguard or enhance the provision of ecosystem services (ES), little attention has been paid to the potential role of PES in climate change adaptation. As an external stressor climate change has an impact on the social-ecological system in which PES takes place, including the various actors taking part in the PES scheme. Following a short description of the conceptual link between PES and adaptation to climate change, we provide practical insights into the relationship between PES and adaptation to climate change by presenting results from a case study of a rural watershed in Kenya. Drawing upon the results of a participatory vulnerability assessment among potential ecosystem service providers in Sasumua watershed north of Nairobi, we show that PES can play a role in enhancing adaptation to climate change by influencing certain elements of adaptive capacity and incentivizing adaptation measures. In addition, trade-offs and synergies between proposed measures under PES and adaptation to climate change are identified. Results show that although it may not be possible to establish PES schemes based on water utilities as the sole source of financing, embedding PES in a wider adaptation framework creates an opportunity for the development of watershed PES schemes in Africa and ensures their sustainability. We conclude that there is a need to embed PES in a wider institutional framework and that extra financial resources are needed to foster greater integration between PES and adaptation to climate change. This can be achieved through scaling up PES by bringing in other buyers and additional ecosystem services. PES can achieve important coadaptation benefits, but for more effective adaptation outcomes it needs to be combined with vulnerability assessments and climate scenarios to ensure that these are realized and potential trade-offs between PES measures and adaptation measures minimized.