Payment for Watershed Services

This is the first I've heard of any credit to landowners for conservation and watershed management, and a very good idea. Where I live, people who own zoned watershed land are forced to pay taxes on it while prohibited from most land uses. This puts pressure on the owner to sell that land, sell it cheaply I might add, at any opportunity. Powerful developers have deep pockets, they buy up watershed or conservation zoned land like marshes and catchments cheaply, and later they have it rezoned for development. They bring in water and sewer services to get around the catchment issue, and then develop at high density.

The buyers of those homes have no idea what they are getting into, since it no longer resembles a marsh! However it is still a catchment vis a vis the larger landscape. They have to blast to put in drainage, but still those homes will end up with flooded basements in extreme weather. And the chemicals and preservatives associated with construction seep down into the water table without the filtration system provided by the structure of a marsh.

We get a lot of rainfall here, and it's a rocky place. Over long time scales, the land has been shaped by the precipitation, forming natural drains as well as the catchment areas that filter and feed the groundwater supply. Only a fool would think that it is cost effective or sensible to destroy the natural design instead of respecting and working around it, and taking advantage of what nature has provided.

In fact the engineering spec for drainage needs to be updated to reflect the fact that we are having more extreme weather events, and the capacity of storm drains is not adequate, as proven by the failure to handle the extra rainfall. This means the engineered expense must go up.

Landowners who maintain forested land and natural drainage and catchments are providing a public service, not only to the groundwater supply but also refreshing the air and the beauty of the landscape. Watershed has to be protected by law, and restricted from development for the public good. Some compensation to the owner is reasonable, and would surely be more effective and more cost-effective than an engineered solution.

In SA the commercial afforestation pay a water use charge called stream flow reduction.

SA is rather arid and the irrigation farmers in the valleys complained that the plantations use too much water. The farmers in the valley pay water use charges.