MULTIDISCIPLINRY NATURE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES.pptx
From Forest to Faucet: Priority for Healthy Watersheds by Albert H. Todd, Executive Director
1. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
From Forest to Faucet:
Priority for healthy watersheds
Albert H. Todd , Executive Director
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
2. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
If you invented a BMP that would
optimize watershed
protection …
it would look like a forest!
3. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
linking forests and water…
“... our runs dry up… several which
would turn a mill are now scarce
sufficient for the farm. The reason is this,
when the country was covered with
woods, the rain that fell was
detained and had time to insinuate
into the earth and contribute to our
springs. But now the country is cleared
and the rain as fast as it falls is hurried
into our creeks and washes away the
soil...and hence creeks told by Mr. Penn
to be navigable are no longer so”
from “Agriculture and County Life, 1753
4. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
“With the disappearance of the forest,
all is changed”
George Perkins Marsh, 1864, from “Man and Nature”
5. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Measures of Watershed health*
A healthy watershed…
Intercepts and stores rainfall
Moderates runoff & stream
flow
Retains & recycles nutrients
Soils protected from erosion
Supports healthy aquatic
systems
Has capacity for self-repair
*Forests, water and climate change, USDA Forest Service 2008
6. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
the “forest
hydrologic
cycle”
Forests intercept,
store, clean, and
regulate the
flow of water
Source: Federal Interagency
Stream Restoration Working
Group, 1998
7. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Watershed health is linked to forests…
Extent - amount of forest in watershed
Location - “critical” forests
Riparian forests & wet woods/wetlands
Steep slopes, erodible soils, urban tree
cover
Condition - age, growth, health, etc.
Stewardship – ownership/management
8. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
How we get water in our homes…
I don’t have any information on this bit!
9. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
From the forest to the faucet…
• Why do we care?
• Forested watersheds supply over
150 million people with drinking
water nationally, 12 million in Bay
watershed
• Lost forest means increased
treatment costs and risk of
contamination
• Concerns for the by-products of
chemical treatment
10. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Analysis Objectives
1. Identify areas important to provision of
quality surface drinking water supply
2. Understand the role of forests in protecting
those surface drinking water
3. Identify threats that could affect forests
future ability to protect drinking
11. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Limits
• Surface water intakes only not groundwater
wells (make direct quality connection)
Source:
Surface water
intakes, EPA
Safe Drinking
Water
Information
System
(SDWIS)
12. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Map Scale
• Sub-watersheds
= 12-digit HUC,
lt blue lines
• > 88,000 HUCs
• Ave. size =
35 sq mi
13. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Step 1: Create an index of watershed
importance to drinking water supply
• What is the relative
importance of each subwatershed in providing
surface drinking water?
• Water Yield
• Population served
• Distance to intake
14. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Surface Drinking
Water Importance
Index: water
protection risk
model
PRn = P0 + ∑ (Wi * Pi)
Pi = the population
served by intakes in
the ith downstream
sub-watershed,
Wi = the proportional
weight for ith
downstream subwatershed
15. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Surface Drinking Water Importance Index:
weighting by water supply
mean annual
mean annual
water supply
water supply
16. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
areas of surface drinking
water importance (weighted by
mean annual water supply)
18. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Step 2: Importance of forests for
surface drinking water
• To what extent do forests protect important
watersheds for surface drinking water?
• All forests
• Private forests
• All protected forests
19. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
the extent to which all forests
are currently protecting areas of
surface drinking water importance.
20. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
the extent to which private forests
are currently protecting areas of
surface drinking water importance.
21. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Step 3: Threats facing forests
important for surface drinking water
• To what extent do development, fire, and insects
and disease threaten forests important to surface
drinking water supply?
22. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
% of each sub-watershed
expected to increase housing
development in forested areas
between 2000 and 2030 (Theobald)
23. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Distribution of
systems – small
and medium
sized supplies
Diversity of
run of the
river
Moderate
Importance in
coastal plain
25. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Top 25%
highest
ranked
watersheds
26. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
How is this information be used?
• Decision Making systems
• Evaluate impacts from land development
• Prioritize land protection
• Target local government/utility outreach
• Identify opportunities for payment systems
• Link with aquatic system & water quality goals
27. Impact of Forest Cover on Chemical Treatment
Costs
A 10% decline in forest cover
leads to an $8-12 increase in
chemical costs per million gallons
of water treated.
E.g. 26 MGD ($10) = 228.8 (365) =
$ 95,000/yr
$250.00
$200.00
Chemical cost/MG
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Less Forest Cover = Higher Treatment Costs
$150.00
Or …
$100.00
$50.00
$0.00
0
20
40
60
80
Percent Forest in Drainage Area
100
For every 10% decline in forest
cover, there may be a 8-20%
increase in treatment costs. May
be higher when other costs like
energy are added.
28. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Putting a value on water
payment for watershed services
• Consumer demand/willingness to pay
• A clear connection between forest and
drinking water
• Future threat avoided or averted
through management or protection
29. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Examples of source water
protection/drinking water
payments for watershed
services programs
30. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
NYC Watershed
• Supply for 6+ million people
• Threat of regulation or
protection of forests and
agricultural lands
• Avoid $7+ billion investment
• $50 million/year in
conservation vs. $300+
million/year in operating costs
• Enhanced services model
31. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Sebago Watershed, Portland
Water District
• Portland, Maine
• Water supply for 200,000
residents
• 92% of 282,000-acre
watershed unprotected
• PWD recently approved
program to spend $225K
annually for forest
easements
• Goal: double protected
acreage over next ten years
32. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Denver Water
• 2.5 + million people
• Colorado Front Range
• Fires result in floods and
erosion -damaged treatment
and storage facilities ($27
million)
• $25 million fund ($27 per
household for 5 years –
matched by USFS)
33. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Sante Fe, NM
• City of Sante Fe, Watershed
Association, TNC, USFS
• Prevent wildfire damage
• Forest thinning 17,000 acres
• 20-year 6.2 million plan $6.50 per household per year
• $43.5 million in avoided costs
in provisioning/regulating
services
34. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Common Waters
Partnership
• Delaware River Basin
• PIC and US Endowment
• Priority conservation areas.
• Finance forest conservation
& management practices for
water quality
• Seeking donations from
water users
35. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Upper Neuse River Basins, NC
• Partners: Land trusts, water
utilities of Raleigh and Durham
• Declining water quality
• Land acquisition & easements,
BMPs, riparian buffers
• Raleigh and Durham raised
$10 M in “nutrient impact fees”
and increased water rates
36. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Payments for
Watershed Services in
Latin America
• Longest Running PWS programs
Costa
Rica
• National Programs in Costa Rica,
Mexico, & Ecuador
• 5.7 Million Acres - $31M for
Watershed Conservation
Mexico
• Drinking Water, industry, and
Hydropower partners
Equador
38. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
"A town is saved, not more by the
righteous citizens within it, than by
the woods that surround it..."
-Henry David Thoreau, 1862
39. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Questions?
Albert H. Todd, Executive Director
atodd@allianceforthebay.org
Data and tools available at:
www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/
Editor's Notes
We have known for a long time that our well-being in living on the land was connected to the forest. Water is the product of its watershed.
The connection between our forests and the health and condition of our waters and watersheds is not new. William Penn went so far as to require in the charter for settlers in “Penn’s Woods” that no less than 25% of woodlands should be maintained on any farm or homestead.
Watershed health is measured by its functions….
How do trees influence watershed function and water quality
THE BLOTTER STORY – Gifford Pinchot & Congress – early national forests – watershed protection forests
three main ways:
rainfall interception
evapotranspiration
Infiltration
the overall effect:
Giant sponge
decrease volume of stormwater
delay peak runoff during storms
increase soil infiltration
Promote groundwater recharge
store nutrients and other pollutants
Presented in descending order of certainty.
Raise your hand if you know the specific physical source of your drinking.
Is it a well?
Is it a reservoir?
River or stream?
The Forests to Faucets project expands on Forests, Water, and People by enlarging the geographic scope to the entire US, and shrinking the map unit scale from 8-digit HUCs with an average size of 1,500 sq mi to 12-digit HUCs with an average size of 35 sq mi. With the database as developed we can quantify number of intakes and number of consumers from those intakes, but to be able to compare the importance of one watershed to another we create an index that depend on intake location and population served by those intake.
the main question we pose in objective 1.
Disguising the EPA intake data
Population as proxy Total number of customers depending on supply
Distance to Let’s say the star = intake serving 10,000 people. The blue lines are rivers flowing downstream.
Importance is assigned by each intake in decreasing percentages of the population served as you go upstream. These values are added up for all intakes across the country.
Results for mountainous areas of the west.
Mean annual water supply, Q, (precipitation minus evapotranspiration) from period 1953-1994 from Brown, et al (2008). Each subwatershed assigned an index weight based on the mean annual water supply characteristics . Then multiplied by importance based on risk.
Composite surface drinking water importance index, IMP.
main question we pose in objective 2.
Figure 6. The index of forest importance to surface drinking water, FIMPn,
shows the extent to which forests are currently protecting areas of surface drinking water importance.
Figure 7. The index of private forest importance to surface drinking water, PriFIMPn,
shows the extent to which private forests are currently protecting areas of surface drinking water importance.
the main question we pose in objective 3.
Here is the map showing % of each subwatershed expected to increase housing development in forested areas between 2000 and 2030.
What do you see?
What would motivate people to consider a PWS system?
A Threat!
An added cost!
Our analysis provides some indicators
A consumer demand for the clean water and a willingness to pay
We use # of consumers to indicate importance
A clear connection between forest management and drinking water
instills stakeholder confidence in the proposed management action
A threat to the existing watershed services that can be avoided or averted through a payment designated for management or protection
We look at threat of development, insect and disease, wildfire, and climate change
**This assessment provides the groundwork for identifying potential sites for PWS schemes, and sets the stage for more site-specific analysis.
Poster child for Watershed Service Markets
So, [point] here’s NYC down here. They get their drinking water from reservoirs upstate here and here in the Catskills [point].
Map: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/0/02/500px-Watershed.gif
New York City has been famous for the quality of their basically untreated drinking water. Consumer Reports once ranked among the best in the Nation, and they even at one point bottled it and sold it throughout the US.
In recent years, this natural purification system was diminishing due to sewage from septic systems and agricultural runoff, and the water quality has dropped below EPA standards. So New York City looked the cost of replacing the natural water treatment system with a drinking water filtration plant. The estimated price tag for this installation was $6 to 8 billion, for filtering services that basically had been performed for free. So facing this high cost, New York City decided to find out whether they could avoid those costs by investing in the natural system – basically purchasing conservation easements to protect the forests in the water supply watersheds and updating septic systems – and the cost of doing that was about $1 billion. So, they were like… $1 billion or $6-8 billion… they chose plan B, the ecosystem services approach, and saved [click] $5-7 billion dollars in capitol costs plus more in operating costs.
The decision to conserve the Catskills ecosystem for water purification will also confer protection on other valuable services, such as flood control and the storage of carbon by plants. This sort of financial mechanism could be extended to other geographic locations and other ecosystem services that would benefit municipalities and habitats throughout the Nation." (case study from http://www.esa.org/ecoservices/)
Buffalo Creek fire in 1996 and Hayman Fire of 2002
$27 million cost of dredging reservoirs to deal with sediment from these fires.
According to the 2010 State of Watershed Payments report, worldwide, Latin America has the longest experience with PWS programs. Of 101 programs, the 36 active Payment for Watershed Services (PWS) programs provide $31million for watershed conservation across 5.7 million acres (State of Watershed Payments Report). [FYI, China generates the most money worldwide (7.8 billion from its 47 PES programs, across 270 hectares)].
70% of those funds, encompassing 90% of the total area protected, were generated by just two programs, the Payments for Ecosystem Services Program of Costa Rica and the National Hydrological Services Program of Mexico. However programs
“The key supporters of these initiatives have been the drinking water companies and hydroelectric generators (both public and private) who have come to realize that investing in conservation of the habitat surrounding their catchment makes good business sense. In some cases, the protection of a watershed’s forest cover has proven to be the most cost-effective way to guarantee ample and good quality water; therefore, a conservation approach is the best policy” (State of Water Payments Report).
Need to improve monitoring of results
80% of supply for Quito and surrounding areas - comes from two public reserves
Water Conservation Trust fund - as of 2008 - $9.3 million dollars in govt. fund.
Watershed tariff (1 cent /m3 )/user fees on water users or dependent goods
Water consumers, Beer/bottled water, Electric utilities
Land acquisition, management practices within 1.3 million acre area.
Landowners receive support for improved management not payments.
Where: Quito region -
When: First pilot project began in 1998
Risk being addressed: Drinking water supply for city and surrounding areas of Quito - 80% of Quito’s water supply comes from two public reserves: Cayambe-Coca and Antisana Ecological Reserves (Photo is from Antisana region (Nicole Balloffet).
Service: Water quality and quantity
Solution/Type of Scheme/Mechanism: Payments for upper watershed conservation. Water Conservation Trust Fund (FONAG – Fondo Nacional de Agua)
Scale: Regional (Nearly 1.3 million-acres, may be expanded to Condor Biosphere Reserve (5.4 million-acre Condor Bioreserve is located east of Quito in the Andean region and includes seven protected areas: Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park, Cotopaxi National Park, and Llanganates National Park, Cofan-Bermejo Reserve, Cayambe-Coca Reserve, Antisana Reserve and Pasochoa Wildlife Refuge, as well as several watershed protection areas and private reserves. Source: TNC))
Water Trust Fund: Quito’s Water Fund, FONAG, was US$9.3 million dollars between 2000 and 2008 (state of the water report)
Supply: Public reserves, local communities living within reserves
Demand: Quito region water users – largest user is the Municipal Sewer and Water Agency
Type of Activities: (will fund management and conservation projects in water supply areas.
Terms of Payments: Private upland users do not receive individual payments, but may receive technical support for improved management.
Financial: Between 2000 & 2008, FONAG held US$9.3 million- Operations and Projects are funded with the interest.
References: IIED Watershed Markets, State of Water Payments, The Nature Conservancy, Ecosystem Marketplace
