Priority areas for watershed service conservation in the Guapi-Macacu region of Rio de Janeiro, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

Introduction: Land use intensification and urbanisation processes are degrading hydrological ecosystem services in the Guapi-Macacu watershed of Rio de Janeiro. A proposal to pay farmers to restore natural watershed services might be an alternative to securing the water supply in the long-term for the around 2.5 million urban water users in the study region. This study quantifies the costs of changing current land use patterns to enhance watershed services and compares these costs to the avoided costs associated with water treatment for public supply. Methods: We use farm-household data to estimate the opportunity costs of abandoning current land uses for the recovery of natural vegetation; a process that is very likely to improve water quality in terms of turbidity due to reduced inputs from erosion. Opportunity cost estimates are extrapolated to the watershed scale based on remote sensing land use classifications and vulnerability analysis to identify priority zones for watershed management interventions. To assess the potential demand for watershed services, we analyse water quality and treatment cost data from the main local water treatment plant. Results: Changing agricultural land uses for watershed services provision generally comes at high opportunity costs in our study area near to the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. Alternative low cost watershed conservation options do exist in the livestock production sector. These options have the potential to directly reduce the amount of sediments and nutrients reaching the water bodies, and in turn decrease the costs of treatment needed for drinking water. Land cover changes at the scale needed to improve water quality will, nonetheless, likely exceed the cost of additional investments in water treatment. Conclusions: The state water utility company?s willingness to pay for watershed services alone will not be enough to induce provision of additional watershed services. We conclude that monetary incentives conditioned on specific adjustments to existing production systems could still have a complementary role to play in improving watershed services. However, we note that our willingness to pay analysis focusses on only one of the potentially wide range of ecosystem services provided by natural vegetation in the Guapi-Macacu watershed. Factoring these ecosystem services into the willingness to pay equation is likely to change our assessment in favour of additional conservation action, be it through PES or other policy instruments

Enhancing cost-effective watershed management in the brazilian Atlantic Forest by valuing forest ecosystem services linked to water quality in the Guapi-Macacu watershed.

The Guapi-Macacu watershed is located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, has a drainage area of about 1.640 km2, and drains into the Guanabara Bay northeast of the metropolitan area. The upper catchment in the Serra dos Órgãos mountain range is covered by dense old-growth forest of high biological diversity, while pastures and agricultural land dominate in the lower catchment. Apart from its outstanding biological value, the watershed provides crucial services including water supply to 2.5 million inhabitants in five municipalities. Nevertheless, forests and soils in the lower watershed are highly degraded due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier, overexploitation, and suburbanisation processes. Several pressures on this ecosystem persist. Therefore payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes are proposed by local initiatives and supported by international organizations as a suitable instrument to deal with the trade-offs between agricultural use and watershed services in a cost-effective manner. Studying the provision costs of and the demand for watershed services can support decision making process to evaluate the scope and economic feasibility of PES and alternative management options. Water resources in the watershed are of extreme importance for agriculture and also for industries, such as water bottle companies, breweries and the biggest Brazilian petrochemical complex, COMPERJ. Our study concentrates on calculating the opportunity costs related to the provision of watershed services under varying land use systems and evaluating the feasibility of PES related aspects, such as preserving or recovering forest areas and integrating good agricultural practices. Watershed services are valued in terms of controlling nutrients (Nitrogen and Phosphorus in surface water) and sediment loads (measured in terms of turbidity and total solids). Replacement and avoided cost methods are applied focusing on the local water treatment facility to estimate demand for service maintenance and improvement. To provide empirical evidence of the link between land use and water quality indicators, we rely on water quality modelling and monitoring specifically adapted to this area. Spatial conservation opportunity cost analysis is used to study the costs of watershed services maintenance and improvement and derive implication for cost-effective management on the basis of scenario analyses. The research activities take place within the framework of the multi-disciplinary German-Brazilian cooperation project DINARIO/MP2

A compilation of the newest values of the physical properties of OM 2 for heat transfer purposes /

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Priority areas for watershed service conservation in the Guapi-Macacu region of Rio de Janeiro, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

Introduction: Land use intensification and urbanisation processes are degrading hydrological ecosystem services in the Guapi-Macacu watershed of Rio de Janeiro. A proposal to pay farmers to restore natural watershed services might be an alternative to securing the water supply in the long-term for the around 2.5 million urban water users in the study region. This study quantifies the costs of changing current land use patterns to enhance watershed services and compares these costs to the avoided costs associated with water treatment for public supply. Methods: We use farm-household data to estimate the opportunity costs of abandoning current land uses for the recovery of natural vegetation; a process that is very likely to improve water quality in terms of turbidity due to reduced inputs from erosion. Opportunity cost estimates are extrapolated to the watershed scale based on remote sensing land use classifications and vulnerability analysis to identify priority zones for watershed management interventions. To assess the potential demand for watershed services, we analyse water quality and treatment cost data from the main local water treatment plant. Results: Changing agricultural land uses for watershed services provision generally comes at high opportunity costs in our study area near to the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. Alternative low cost watershed conservation options do exist in the livestock production sector. These options have the potential to directly reduce the amount of sediments and nutrients reaching the water bodies, and in turn decrease the costs of treatment needed for drinking water. Land cover changes at the scale needed to improve water quality will, nonetheless, likely exceed the cost of additional investments in water treatment. Conclusions: The state water utility company?s willingness to pay for watershed services alone will not be enough to induce provision of additional watershed services. We conclude that monetary incentives conditioned on specific adjustments to existing production systems could still have a complementary role to play in improving watershed services. However, we note that our willingness to pay analysis focusses on only one of the potentially wide range of ecosystem services provided by natural vegetation in the Guapi-Macacu watershed. Factoring these ecosystem services into the willingness to pay equation is likely to change our assessment in favour of additional conservation action, be it through PES or other policy instruments.Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-22T08:35:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 s1371701400167.pdf: 2054243 bytes, checksum: ce685a7bff11021c12848d2b063cddaf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-13201