̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Libby Blanchard

Opinion: Paying people to stay away is not always the best way to protect watersheds

sc604 — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 08:00:00 +0000

Such drought and water scarcity are only likely to increase with climate change, and the chances of a “megadrought” – one that lasts 35 years or longer — affecting the Southwest and central Great Plains by 2100 are above 80% if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

Droughts are currently ranked second in the US in terms of national weather-related damages, with annual losses just shy of US$9 billion annually. Such economic impacts are likely to worsen as the century progresses.

As the frequency and severity of droughts increases, the successful protection of watersheds to capture, store and deliver water downstream in catchments will become increasingly important, even as the effective protection of watersheds becomes more challenging.

Since the early 2000s, the prevailing view in watershed protection is that paying upstream resource users for avoiding harmful activities, or rewarding positive action, is the most effective and direct method. This is the case of the Catskills watershed in New York, where environmentally sound economic development is incentivized.

There are, however, many different ways communities can invest in watersheds to harness the benefits they provide downstream communities.

In a recently published paper in the journal Ecosystem Services, we highlight an alternative option with the example of Salt Lake City’s successful management of the Wasatch watershed. Instead of offering financial incentives for the “ecosystem services” provided by this watershed, planners use regulations to secure the continued delivery of water, while allowing for recreational and public use.

̽��ֱ��successful management of the Wasatch demonstrates that an overreliance on markets to deliver watershed protection might be misguided.

Perhaps part of the reason for this overreliance on market-based tools is a paucity of alternative success stories of watershed management. We note that the Wasatch story has been largely absent from much of the literature that discusses the potential of investing in watersheds for the important services that they provide. This absence results in an incomplete understanding of options to secure watershed ecosystem services, and limits the consideration of alternative watershed conservation approaches.

̽��ֱ��Wasatch management strategy

̽��ֱ��Wasatch is a 185-square-mile watershed that is an important drinking water source to over half a million people in Salt Lake City. This water comes from the annual snowmelt from the 11,000-foot-high peaks in the Wasatch range, which act as Salt Lake City’s virtual reservoir.

Salt Lake City’s management of the Wasatch watershed is somewhat unusual in contemporary examples of watershed protection in that it is focused on nonexclusionary regulation – that is, allowing permitted uses – and zoning to protect the urban water supply. For instance, the cities of Portland, Oregon and Santa Fe, New Mexico have worked with the US Forest Service to prohibit public access to source water watersheds within forests to protect drinking water supplies. In contrast, the governance of the Wasatch allows for public access and both commercial and noncommercial activities to occur in the watershed, such as skiing and mountain biking. It also imposes restrictions on allowable uses, such as restricting dogs in the watershed.

This permitted use, socially negotiated, helps mitigate the potential trade-offs associated with protection activities.

̽��ֱ��suite of policies that protect the Wasatch do not include a “payments for ecosystem services” or other market-based incentives component, nor has there been any discussion of compensating potential resource users in the watershed for foregone economic opportunities. By not having a market-based incentives component, the Wasatch example provides an alternative regulatory-based solution for the protection of natural capital, which contrasts with the now prevalent market-based payments approach.

Importantly, the Wasatch example reinforces the rights of citizens to derive positive benefits from nature, without these being mediated through the mechanism of markets. In most payment-based systems, potential harm to a watershed is avoided by organizing beneficiaries so that they can compensate upstream resource users for foregone activities. In contrast, reliance on regulation and permitted activities supports the ‘polluter pays principle,’ which might be more appropriate in many circumstances.

Why we need alternative strategies

With the American West facing ever-increasing droughts, policymakers will be faced with the increasingly difficult task of protecting and preserving water supplies. Thus, awareness of alternative, successful strategies of watershed protection and management is crucially important.

̽��ֱ��Wasatch offers an important example of how natural capital can be instrumentally and economically valued, but conserved via regulatory approaches and land use management and zoning, rather than a reliance on the creation of water markets, which are often misplaced and not suitable. Bringing stakeholders together to negotiate allowable uses that preserve critical watershed functions is an additional option within the policymaker’s toolkit, and one that is at risk of being forgotten in the rush to payment-based systems.

Libby Blanchard, Gates Cambridge Scholar and PhD Candidate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Bhaskar Vira, Reader in Political Economy at the Department of Geography and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College; Director, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Libby Blanchard and Bhaskar Vira from Cambridge's Department of Geography argue that we need to consider alternative approaches in order to protect watersheds.

̽��ֱ��successful management of the Wasatch demonstrates that an overreliance on markets to deliver watershed protection might be misguided.

Bhaskar Vira

Silver Lake, Wasatch watershed, Utah

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Alternative ways of protecting urban water supplies must be considered in light of worsening droughts in the US, study claims

jeh98 — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 08:00:15 +0000

Salt Lake City’s preservation of the Wasatch watershed is an important model for protecting urban water sources through land use regulation and conservation, which could have important implications for preserving future water supplies against the effects of climate change in the American West, according to a new study. This example is currently absent from academic literature on ecosystem services, meaning that conservation discussions are instead dominated by models that focus on financial, ‘market-based’ incentives to protect watershed areas, which the researchers argue could be inappropriate in many circumstances.

̽��ֱ��most prevalent model for water resource preservation is that of New York City’s Catskills/Delaware watershed, which is based on upstream resource users being paid to avoid harmful practices that might affect water flows and water quality, typically by beneficiaries who are downstream. These ‘market-based’ approaches (also known as Payments for Watershed or Ecosystem Services) have been widely promoted, but risk neglecting alternative approaches that do not always require monetary transactions to improve environmental outcomes.

In contrast, Salt Lake City’s management strategy allows regulated use of the watershed area for public recreation (unlike other forested catchments in the US where public access is prohibited to preserve water resources). In the Wasatch case, this means that the upstream catchment remains accessible, including for high impact uses such as skiing and mountain biking. Researchers argue that it is vital to consider these alternative strategies for solving the increasing water scarcity in the American West.

“While regulatory exclusion is often thought of as the only viable alternative to market-based incentives in managing ecosystem services, the management of the Wasatch watershed provides a third, yet under-recognised, successful conservation strategy for water resources,” says Libby Blanchard, lead author of the study from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Geography.

“ ̽��ֱ��dominance of the Catskills example in discussions of watershed protection provides an unduly limited, and historically incomplete, perspective on interventions to secure water resources, and limits policy discussions about alternative conservation approaches,” she adds.

In the American West, unprecedented droughts have caused extreme water shortages. ̽��ֱ��current drought in California and across the West is entering its fourth year, with precipitation and water storage reaching record low levels. Droughts are ranked second in the US in terms of national weather-related economic impacts, with annual losses just shy of $9 billion. With water scarcity likely to increase due to advancing climate change, the economic and environmental impacts of drought are also likely to get worse.

“ ̽��ֱ��chances of a ‘megadrought’ – one that lasts for 35 years or longer – affecting the Southwest and central Great Plains by 2100 are above 80% if climate change projections are not mitigated,” says Blanchard. “As the West faces more frequent and severe droughts, the successful protection of watersheds for the ecosystem services of water capture, storage, and delivery they provide will be increasingly important.”

“ ̽��ֱ��sufficient and effective protection of watersheds will become more challenging, so awareness of alternative, successful strategies is critically important,” adds Bhaskar Vira, co-author of the study also from Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “ ̽��ֱ��management of the Wasatch is one such strategy that should be more widely recognised amongst policymakers and researchers alike seeking effective solutions to water scarcity.”

̽��ֱ��economic and instrumental value of the Wasatch watershed was noticed by Salt Lake City’s government as early as the 1850s, when the first legislation to protect the city’s natural resources was passed. Salt Lake City uses two tools to protect its watershed: purchasing land for conservation, and regulating land use by restricting a variety of activities within the watershed such as cattle grazing. Recreation is not altogether restricted, but is negotiated with the local community to allow public use. ̽��ֱ��Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest is one of the most heavily visited national forests in the US, with 7 million annual visitors.

“Salt Lake City has been able to preserve the natural capital that protects its watershed while allowing recreational use. ̽��ֱ��preservation of the watershed actually boosts recreation, providing visitors with natural landscapes and unadulterated settings for mountain biking, hiking, skiing, and fly-fishing,” says Blanchard.

̽��ֱ��city raises funds to buy land within the watershed through a surcharge on water customers’ monthly bills, which provides around $1.5 million each year to protect watershed lands from development. Since 1907, the city has managed to purchase over 23,000 acres of the watershed.

“Despite the popularity and power of the Catskills narrative to promote the preservation of ecosystems via market-based incentives, we found that this narrative is at best partial, and quite possibly flawed,” says Blanchard.

“ ̽��ֱ��Wasatch’s absence in the ecosystem literature results in an incomplete perspective on interventions to secure watershed ecosystem services and limits policy discussions in relation to alternative conservation approaches. It is vital that such alternatives are given more recognition in order to find effective solutions for the protection of natural capital in the future.”

Reference:

Blanchard, L et al. " ̽��ֱ��lost narrative: Ecosystem service narratives and the missing Wasatch watershed conservation story" Ecosystem Services, December 2015. ̽��ֱ��paper can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2015.10.019

Libby Blanchard’s research is funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust.

Inset image: Recreation in the Wasatch watershed (Libby Blanchard).

Alternative models of watershed protection that balance recreational use and land conservation must no longer be ignored to preserve water supplies against the effects of climate change, argues a new study. Researchers claim that the management of Salt Lake City’s Wasatch watershed in Utah provides a valuable example contradicting the dominant view presented in academic literature that informs many current conservation strategies.

̽��ֱ��chances of a ‘megadrought’ – one that lasts for 35 years or longer – affecting the Southwest and central Great Plains by 2100 are above 80% if climate change projections are not mitigated

Libby Blanchard

Utah Wildflowers

Fall in the Wasatch Mountains

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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