Wetted Land: the Assessment, Techniques & Economics of Restoration

The WATER project will develop a market based catchment restoration scheme which will be based on a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) model and aims to identify both delivery and funding mechanisms to lever private investment for catchment restoration

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WATER Catchments

The Fal WEPES Project

The Wetland Example of Payments for Ecosystem Services is a novel research and development project, part funded by the Natural England Wetland Vision Fund, based on a section of historic floodplain on the river Fal in West Cornwall.

The project aims to:

• Reconnect and rewet 21ha of extensively grazed and cultivated disconnected floodplain reinstating it as a series of lowland wetland BAP habitats.

• Economically evaluate the direct and indirect ecosystem services benefits including carbon sequestration, flood mitigation, nutrient stripping, biodiversity and extensive management (limited grazing, shooting, fishing).

• Identify and sell the most economically beneficial services to local investors.

• Establish with the landowner and pay for mechanisms to remove land from long-term intensive production to light touch extensive management agreements or 1000-year covenants.

• Evaluate the projects applicability in terms of developing a Payments for Ecosystem Services based scheme that ensures long-term protection of other hydrologically important areas within the rest of the Fal catchment.