Value : counting ecosystems as water infrastructure

Pay : establishing payments for watershed services

“…Detailed explanations of the methods and practical case studies are provided in the WANI toolkit VALUE. 14 Where constraints on the availability of human or financial resources mean that new valuation studies are not done, values are sometimes taken from previous studies that focused on a different region or time period. However, each decision-making situation is unique, and therefore data obtained from one location may not always be applicable in another place.…”

“…3 Also people have started to realise that they need to invest in the maintenance of watershed services, just as they invest in the maintenance of other types of infrastructure. Without such investments, specific watershed services that are beneficial to downstream users are likely to be degraded.…”

“…To better understand the economic value of watershed services, a range of methods can be used. 7 The information derived from such valuation of watershed services helps to determine the true costs and benefits of various land-uses and trade-offs involved in deciding between them. Making values for watershed services explicit also helps to motivate people to consider these services in decision making in the first place.…”

Nature-based solutions to address global societal challenges

“…In the case of natural infrastructure, economic planning for water resources development at basin or national scales needs to account for ecosystem services. With the costs and benefits of ecosystem services valued, a business case can be made for investing in ecosystems and watersheds as natural infrastructure, as part of sustainable financing for river basin management (IUCN, 2011;Russi et al, 2013;Emerton & Bos, 2004). It is also critical to make financing available to local initiatives for watershed management through decentralised funds and credit schemes that integrate clean and adequate water for all, ecosystem services, livelihoods and economic development (IUCN, 2011).…”

Wetlands as natural assets

“…Similarly, changes in water regime will affect different wetland services significantly, resulting in many possible trade-offs and synergies among these services within different wetland scenarios and water regimes. The consequence is that the ecosystem services provided by wetlands are driven by hydrology, and understanding how changes in hydrological processes affect the delivery of these services is critical to determining the impact on human welfare (Bullock and Acreman 2003, Brauman et al 2007, Emerton and Boss 2008, Mitsch et al 2009.…”