Topic: wetlands

Insights from the Field: Forests for Water

Kevin Lustig — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:56:29 -0500

Summary

In the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina, WRI is working with partners to identify beneficiaries and their water-related dependencies. We learned that clear documentation of the risks that beneficiaries face from water pollution, drought, and watershed degradation will help jump-start their participation in emerging PWS programs.
In the Sebago Lake Watershed in Maine, WRI is finalizing a methodology for “green-gray” analysis that will provide beneficiaries a way to identify cost-effective green infrastructure solutions to water infrastructure demands of the 21st century. Green infrastructure comprises all natural, seminatural and artificial networks of multifunctional ecological systems within, around, and between urban areas at all spatial scales. We learned that, to convince public investment managers to invest in green rather than gray, it is important to make the financial and business case using the same basic methodologies that are used for calculating the costs and benefits of conventional gray approaches.
WRI is also working to develop PWS programs that help the city of Raleigh meet streetscape, conservation development, tree conservation, storm water management, and water quality goals contained in its Unified Development Ordinance in a least cost manner. We learned that market-based solutions like PWS can play a large role in land-use planning processes and that these processes may represent a large untapped demand driver for PWS programs throughout the South.

MEDIA ADVISORY: 4th Annual Ecosystem Markets Conference - Making Ecosystems Work

Lauren Zelin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:18:28 -0400

Experts and innovators meet to chart the future of ecosystem conservation

The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the American Forest Foundation (AFF) co-host the 4th annual Ecosystem Markets Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, June 29 – July 1, 2011. Hundreds of experts, innovators, land owners, government officials, investors and academics will discuss how to make ecosystem markets work to conserve natural resources; followed by a field trip through Aldo Leopold’s backyard to see ecosystem services in action.

At a time when state and federal budgets for conservation are dwindling, ecosystems are being degraded and threats to natural resources are increasing, more market-driven solutions are necessary to open the next chapter in conservation. Through ecosystem markets, the many benefits that well-managed lands provide, such as clean water and wildlife habitat, are assigned a value that results in payments to landowners for providing these services. This win-win for the public and landowners is necessary to protect the planet’s natural resources.

The 2011 conference theme “Ecosystem Markets: Making Them Work” underscores the need for innovative thinking to bridge the gap between ecosystem market potential and reality. Participants will gather for two days of open-format meetings on topics including payments to landowners, policy and ethics, private investment, water quality, bioenergy, and more.

The conference will open with a video address by Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Senior representatives from the host organizations along with ecosystem services experts from around the world will participate in the conference and will be available for interviews.

What:
4th Annual Ecosystem Markets Conference. Website: http://ecomarketconference.com/

When:
June 29-30, 2011, conference sessions
July 1, 2011, field trip to working ecosystems and Aldo Leopold’s shack

Where:
The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club
1 W. Dayton Street, Madison, WI
(Free parking is provided for our conference group)

Media Highlights:

Wednesday, June 29, 2011
* 8:15 a.m. – Welcome and video address by Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture
* 8:35 a.m. – Plenary Session 1: The Current State of Ecosystem Markets
* 10:20 a.m. – Plenary Session 2: Policies to Support Ecosystem Services and Markets
* 12:40 p.m. – Lunch and preview of Green Fire documentary, hosted by the Aldo Leopold Foundation and followed by a Q&A session

Friday, July 1, 2011
* 8:00 a.m. – Field trip; See below for details. * Experts available for interviews during the tour

For the full conference agenda, visit http://ecomarketconference.com/agenda/.

RSVP and Media Requests:

Amanda Cooke | AFF | ACooke@forestfoundation.org | 202-463-2731
Lauren Cole | WRI | LCole@wri.org | 202-729-7736

Follow the Twitter conversation - #ecomarkets2011

Field Trip Information - PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

What:
Tour the Leopold family shack and farm, and see sites conserved for ecosystem services through public/private partnerships, including the Leopold Waterfowl Production Area, Baraboo Oak Street dam removal site, and the Leopold Memorial Reserve constructed wetland. Detailed agenda: http://ecomarketconference.com/field-trip/.

When:
July 1, 2011 from 8:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Where:
Meet at the Madison Concourse Hotel for bus departure.

Who:
Experts from WRI, AFF and other conference attendees will be available for interviews and photo opportunities during the Field Trip. Please contact Amanda Cooke or Lauren Cole to RSVP.

Thanks to the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the Sand County Foundation for their generous assistance in hosting and organizing the field trip.

Comparison Tables of State Nutrient Trading Programs in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Maggie Barron — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:43:50 -0400

Over the last ten years, four Chesapeake Bay states—Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia—introduced nutrient trading programs to provide wastewater treatment plants with flexible options for meeting and maintaining permitted nutrient load limits. At least one other bay state, Delaware, also convened a work group to discuss developing such a program. Through these programs, wastewater treatment plants may purchase credits or offsets generated by other wastewater treatment plants or farms that reduce the nutrients they release to impaired water bodies. States are also exploring options for construction and urban stormwater programs to buy and sell credits and offsets.

To date, most credit transactions have occurred between buyers and sellers in the same state. Efforts to enact the recent Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), however, could provide more opportunities for interaction by trading partners from different states. For example, regulated entities could seek credits or offsets from other states when the supply in their own state has been exhausted. In addition, entities in states that do not have a trading program could seek credits or offsets from entities in states that do have such a program.

Although the elements of many of the trading programs are identical or very similar, such as calculation platforms, included pollutants, and allowable participants, there are several differences as well. Examples are the time period that defines the life of a credit or offset and the varying types and values of trading ratios. States may need to address these and other differences before permitting more cross-state transactions. Regardless of how these differences are resolved, government regulations require credit transactions to be documented in the public record.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has compiled into comparison tables the key design elements of the four state trading programs. The tables comprise a reference document for policymakers and others addressing the programs’ differences. These design elements are grouped into twelve categories based on their common characteristics. All the information is current as of May 2011; was paraphrased directly from the statute, regulation, policy, or guidance documents; and has been reviewed by trading experts. Nonetheless, this information will undoubtedly change as the states refine their strategies for implementing the TMDLs.

List of Tables

Legal Authorities and Guidance Documents
Pollutants and General Eligibility Requirements
Point Source Participation Requirements
Market Functionality
Baseline Requirements
Trading Ratios
Credit or Offset Restrictions
Certification and Verification Processes
Septic Hookup Provisions
Compliance and Enforcement Provisions
Risk Management Provisions
Registry Vehicles and Oversight Agencies

Protecting Forests to Protect Water in the U.S. South

Logan Yonavjak — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:21:59 -0500

When it comes to providing clean water, investments in forest conservation can save money.

Clean water doesn’t come cheap. Communities and businesses often rely on expensive water filtration infrastructure to ensure their clean water supplies. But what if they could save money by protecting upstream forests instead of building new, costly water treatment infrastructure?

The World Resources Institute (WRI) investigates this potential in Forests for Water: Exploring Payments for Watershed Services in the U.S. South. The issue brief provides an overview of how businesses and water utilities in the United States and Latin America are pursuing upstream forest conservation as a cost-effective means of ensuring clean water supplies. It also suggests how many of these approaches could be applicable in the southern United States.

Connecting Forests and Clean Water

Forests are often overlooked for the freshwater benefits they provide, but two-thirds of the nation’s water originates from forested lands in the United States. This water comes from precipitation that is filtered through forests, and much of it ends up in streams. In addition to filtering and purifying water, forests naturally regulate the timing and amount of water flows, which helps lessen flooding during heavy rainstorms. Forests also help curb erosion and prevent excess nutrients from fertilizer from entering nearby bodies of water.

Businesses and communities enjoy immense economic benefits from these forest “ecosystem services” (Figure 1). For example:

By naturally filtering water, forests can reduce drinking water treatment costs. For example, New York City famously saved billions of dollars in water filtration costs by conserving the forests and natural landscapes of the Catskills instead of paying for a new water filtration system.
By curbing erosion, forests can keep sediment and excess nutrients out of waterways. For instance forest buffers near streams can prevent nitrogen from entering waterways at approximately one-third of the cost per pound of nitrogen relative to wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
By filtering water through its porous soils, a forest can minimize wastewater treatment costs. For example, according to the Army Corps of Engineers a forest or forested wetland can filter water at approximately one-seventh of the cost per thousand gallons than can conventional wastewater treatment systems.

Figure 1: Green Infrastructure Can Be Less Expensive Than Gray Infrastructure: (Click to enlarge)

The Business Case for Conserving Forests for Clean Water

Public utilities, wastewater treatment plants, and governments are not the only ones that can benefit from conserving forests. Businesses that depend on a supply of clean water, such as beverage companies, power companies with hydroelectric facilities, microchip manufacturers, and housing developers may have a business case, as well.

However, these services that forests provide are threatened. In the southern United States, suburbanization has put forests, and thus the region’s clean water supply, at risk (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Watersheds of the Southern United States: (Click to enlarge)

One innovative approach for tackling this threat is to use “payments for watershed services.” Payments for watershed services provide landowners financial incentives to conserve, sustainably manage, and/or restore forests for one or more of the kinds of watershed services mentioned above. Such payments typically involve downstream beneficiaries paying upstream forest owners or forest managers.

There are three general types of payments for watershed services that companies and governments could take advantage of to cut costs:

voluntary payments to upstream landowners to reduce the cost of doing business;
payments to minimize the cost of meeting a regulation; and
payments made to generate public benefits like improved water quality.

“Payments for watershed services are a novel way to cost-effectively sustain clean water supplies while generating other benefits such as habitat conservation,” said Patricia Pineda, group vice president of philanthropy and the Toyota USA Foundation. “Innovative ideas like this one are the reason Toyota is proud to partner with WRI as part of the company’s commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative.”

From “Gray” Infrastructure to “Green” Infrastructure

Now that decision-makers are focusing sharply on budgets and cost-effectiveness, the time has come to see a forest for the water, not just for the trees.

To access this brief and other issue briefs in the Southern Forests for the Future Incentives Series, and to learn more about southern U.S. forests, visit: www.SeeSouthernForests.org. Developed by WRI with support from Toyota, this interactive site provides a wide range of information about southern forests, including current and historic satellite images that allow users to zoom in on areas of interest, overlay maps showing selected forest features and drivers of change, historic forest photos, and case studies of innovative approaches for sustaining forests in the region. To order free hard copies of this issue brief, and other briefs in the Southern Forests for the Future Incentives Series, please contact us.

Forests for Water: Exploring Payments for Watershed Services in the U.S. South

Maggie Barron — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:35:36 -0500

Summary

The forested watersheds of the southern United States provide a number of benefits—including water flow regulation, flood control, water purification, erosion control, and freshwater supply—to the region’s citizens, communities, and businesses.
The loss and degradation of forests can reduce their ability to provide these watershed-related ecosystem services.
Payments for watershed services provide landowners financial incentives to conserve, sustainably manage, and/or restore forests specifically to provide one or more watershed-related ecosystem services. Such payments typically involve downstream beneficiaries paying upstream forest owners or forest managers.
There are three general types of payments for watershed services: (1) voluntary payments by downstream entities to upstream landowners to reduce the costs of doing business, (2) payments made to minimize an entity’s cost of meeting a regulation, and (3) payments made to generate public benefits. A number of instances of each type of payment have been piloted in the United States, Latin America, and elsewhere.
Many payments for watershed services share a common trait: they are investments in “green infrastructure” instead of “gray infrastructure.” In other words, they are investments in forests and natural, open space instead of in human-engineered solutions to address water quantity or quality problems. In many instances, investments in green infrastructure can be more cost effective than investments in gray infrastructure.
Entities that may have a business case for making a payment for watershed services include beverage companies, power companies with hydroelectric facilities, manufacturers that rely on clean freshwater supplies for processing, housing developers, public and private wastewater treatment plants, city and county governments, drinking water utilities, and public departments of transportation, among others.
These entities can pursue a number of steps to capture the potential benefits of payments for watershed services, including identifying those forests most responsible for their clean water supplies, conducting economic analyses of green versus gray infrastructure, and exploring public/private financing partnerships.
Upstream landowners can pursue a number of steps to advance— and ultimately benefit from—payments for watershed services, including developing an understanding of the watershed-related ecosystem services their forests provide, actively looking for emerging payment opportunities, and collaborating with other landowners to achieve economies of scale when engaging beneficiaries of the services their forests provide.
This issue brief is intended as an introductory resource primarily for entities that depend upon stable supplies of clean freshwater in the southern United States and are looking for cost-effective approaches to sustain this supply. This brief also provides information to southern landowners interested in potential revenue streams generated by conservation and sustainable management of forests.

Watersheds of the Southern United States

Maggie Barron — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:38:48 -0500

In the Southern United States, the watersheds with the greatest ability to produce clean water and with the most consumers tend to be the forested watersheds of the east (top). But these are often the same watersheds upon which development pressure is greatest (bottom).

Forests and Water: Green Infrastructure Can Be Less Expensive Than Gray Infrastructure

Maggie Barron — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:32:41 -0500

Many payments for watershed services share a common trait: they are investments in “green infrastructure” instead of “gray infrastructure.” In other words, they are investments in forests instead of human-engineered solutions, concrete, and other technologies to maintain the ongoing provision of watershed services over time. For example, to meet drinking water quality standards implemented since the late 1980s, researchers expect that treatment plants across the United States will have to invest hundreds of billions in infrastructure (Dissmeyer 2000; Maxwell 2005). Green infrastructure investments could obviate the need for at least a portion of these expenditures. New York City, Bogotá, and other cities are using investments in forest conservation and restoration as a way to avoid the building of new water filtration plants to maintain clean water flows to the cities’ residents. In the Boston area, three watersheds received a filtration waiver, avoiding costs of about $200 million due to commitments to maintain upstream forest conditions (Barten et al. 1998). In a water quality trading program, a wastewater treatment plant could finance a landowner to restore riparian forests instead of investing in plant upgrades.

These investments in green infrastructure are designed to save money relative to investments in gray infrastructure. Note, however, that this figure’s estimates do not include the economic values of other, nonwatershed-related ecosystem services provided by green investments or the natural resource damages caused by gray infrastructure, such as the loss of fisheries associated with dams.

New Web-Based Map Tracks Marine "Dead Zones" Worldwide

Michael Oko — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 09:58:20 -0500

Research Identifies 530 Coastal “Dead Zones” and 228 Marine Eutrophic Sites

New research by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) identifies more than 530 low-oxygen “dead zones” and an additional 228 sites worldwide exhibiting signs of marine “eutrophication.” Eutrophication occurs when water bodies are over-fertilized by nutrients that are washed into surface waters from farms and urban areas.

Analysts at WRI and VIMS have compiled the information into a web-based “one-stop shop” that provides a global database and interactive map of affected areas, as well as links to articles, photos, and other resources. The website—“Eutrophication and Hypoxia: Nutrient Pollution in Coastal Waters”— is at www.wri.org/eutrophication.

“Until now, a lack of information and monitoring has been a major impediment to understanding the extent and impacts of ‘dead zones’ and eutrophication in coastal ecosystems,” said Mindy Selman, senior water quality analyst at WRI. “This website is an important step forward because it compiles the current information into a central location to raise awareness and offer solutions for controlling nutrient pollution.”

An important feature of the site is a comments section to solicit feedback from visitors, who will be encouraged to provide updates to the maps and databases drawing on their knowledge of local conditions.

The 530 areas and 228 sites together encompass more than 95,000 square miles, about the size of New Zealand. The largest dead zone in the United States, at the mouth of the Mississippi, covers more than 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey. A large dead zone also underlies much of the main-stem of Chesapeake Bay, occupying about 40 percent of the Bay’s area and up to five percent of its volume each summer.

Professor Bob Diaz, who led the compilation of data at VIMS, said: “Over the last 50 years, problems related to over-fertilization of the sea and low dissolved oxygen have expanded to the point where large areas devoid of fish, shrimp, and crabs are common occurrences. These dead zones, or oxygen deserts, are very damaging to the environment and also to people that rely on the sea for their livelihood.”

Eutrophication and hypoxia— a scientific term for low-oxygen dead zones– often go hand-in-hand, as excessive nutrients fuel blooms of algae that, when they die and sink, provide a rich food source for bacteria. The bacteria, in turn, consume dissolved oxygen from surrounding waters, creating dead zones where fish cannot survive. Other impacts of eutrophication include damage to coral reefs, harmful algal blooms, and loss of biodiversity.

The partnership between WRI and VIMS stems from a 2007 WRI study of the main obstacles to effectively addressing eutrophication. The study concluded that a key obstacle is a lack of public awareness and understanding of the phenomenon and its impacts, causes, and extent. Eutrophication and dead zones are now a key stressor of marine ecosystems and rank with over-fishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems for marine life.

Diaz, who began monitoring the worldwide extent of eutrophication and dead zones in the mid-1990s, has published an ongoing list of hypoxic areas worldwide. He and WRI worked together on the new website to expand the list of dead zones as well as include coastal areas where symptoms of eutrophication (e.g., algal blooms) have been observed, but which lack the monitoring data to classify the system as hypoxic.

# # # #

The World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank whose mission is to find practical ways to protect the earth andimprove people’s lives.

Chartered in 1940, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is now among the largest marine research and education centers in the United States. VIMS has a three-part mission to conduct interdisciplinary research in coastal ocean and estuarine science, educate students and citizens, and provide advisory service to policy makers, industry, and the public. The School of Marine Science (SMS) at VIMS is the graduate school in marine science for the College of William & Mary.

Obama Administration Releases New Strategy to Clean Up Chesapeake Bay

Evan Branosky — Fri, 14 May 2010 09:33:54 -0400

The federal commitment to develop and support environmental markets could have national significance.

The most apparent challenge to restoring the Chesapeake Bay involves a balance between the competing needs of ecosystems and humans. Kingman and Heritage Islands Park, a tract of 50-forested acres along the Anacostia River in the District of Columbia, appeared to balance those needs pretty well on Wednesday morning. Great blue herons fed within walking distance of Metro’s Orange Line as the Chairperson of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Secretary of Agriculture, and other senior officials unveiled President Obama’s new Bay clean-up strategy.

The Strategy for Protecting and Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed kicks-off the most comprehensive Bay restoration effort ever, and it does it in part though unprecedented support for environmental markets.

A New Federal Strategy for Bay Cleanup

The Bay is in bad shape, with just 12 percent of its waters having met Clean Water Act standards for dissolved oxygen between 2007 and 2009. Partially for this reason, President Obama issued an Executive Order on May 12, 2009 that required EPA and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, and Transportation to launch a new restoration effort based on collaborative action. The guiding strategy has four priorities: restoring clean water, recovering habitat, sustaining fish and wildlife, and conserving land and increasing public access.

The priorities will be achieved, in part, through four cross-cutting strategies, one of which is the development of environmental markets.

Environmental Markets and Nutrient Trading

The emphasis on environmental markets was welcome news for me and my colleagues on the Water Quality Team at WRI. Our team has worked on nutrient trading, a type of environmental market, for over ten years. With nutrient trading, regulated point sources, such as wastewater treatment plants, can comply with Clean Water Act regulations at the lowest possible cost.

Nutrient pollution has been a huge problem for the Chesapeake Bay in recent decades. When nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus (from sources like wastewater treatment plants, farms, and cement surfaces) run off into the Bay, they can cause algal blooms and hurt water quality.

Pollution controls can be expensive, which is where nutrient trading can provide a welcome solution. EPA policy shows how entities such as wastewater treatment plants that face high costs to reduce their nutrient discharge could purchase reductions from other sources in the form of “credits.” Farms, for example, can often reduce their runoff at a lower cost than wastewater treatment plants, so they can be a source of credits. The flexibility of market exchanges also lets new wastewater treatment plants and stormwater programs expand as more people demand the services they provide. Credit purchases reduce the impacts of additional discharges on water quality.

WRI works with states to develop nutrient trading guidance and regulations. We are also building support for linking those programs into a bay-wide trading program by forecasting the financial benefits of producing and acquiring nutrient credits from the agriculture, wastewater, stormwater, and additional sectors. Our most recent analysis found that a representative 200-acre farm in Virginia could realize $8,200 per year from participating in a bay-wide nutrient trading market under a modeled scenario.

A Template for Environmental Markets Nationwide

The strategy requires the Department of Agriculture to lead an “Environmental Markets Team” of seven agencies and the EPA. The Team will establish infrastructure for environmental markets in the Bay watershed, which includes developing tools that measure ecosystem benefits from land management practices; establishing “baseline” requirements that a farmer would need to meet before participating in a market; and establishing a platform for registering, reporting, and tracking practices to generate credits; among other tasks.

The federal commitment to develop and support environmental markets could have national significance. The strategy notes that:

Successful environmental markets in the Bay watershed might be used as a template for environmental markets nationwide.

Nutrient trading markets, of which 23 exist in various stages of development throughout the United States, could be used to achieve cost-effective reductions in nutrient pollution in other regions beyond the Chesapeake Bay watershed. WRI, for example, is evaluating the potential for markets to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution in the Gulf of Mexico (which each year suffers from a nutrient-induced “dead zone” the size of Massachusetts).

The federal effort will have the greatest impact if it involves as many stakeholders as possible. The Team should consult throughout the process—and not just at the end through public comment—with: a) the state environment agencies that ultimately decide whether or not credits count toward complying with discharge limits, b) the buyers and sellers in the markets that will provide real-world insight into the most cost-effective market designs, c) the finance community that will leverage market exchanges to achieve maximum savings, and d) the non-governmental organizations who can share their experience in market-development and analysis.

If stakeholders beyond the federal government are included during the development phase, the resulting bay-wide trading program is more likely to become the cost-effective policy mechanism we all are hoping for to help restore the Bay. In addition, it will serve as a model for impaired water bodies throughout the United States.

How Nutrient Trading Could Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay

Cy Jones — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:58:20 -0500

Summary

The largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake Bay is a vital economic, cultural, and ecological resource for the region and the nation. Excess runoff and discharges of nutrients—particularly nitrogen and phosphorus—from farms, pavement, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and other sources have placed the bay on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) List of Impaired Waters. This nutrient pollution is responsible for creating large algal blooms that lead to “dead zones” in the bay. Despite decades of restoration efforts, progress has been slow, and the rivers and streams that drain into the Bay remain polluted.

The proposed “Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009” (H.R. 3852/S. 1816) would provide signifi cant new resources and new approaches to help restore the bay. Nutrient trading is one such approach. In a nutrient trading market, sources that reduce their nutrient runoff or discharges below target levels can sell their surplus reductions or “credits” to other sources. This approach allows those that can reduce nutrients at low cost to sell credits to those facing higher-cost nutrient reduction options. Nutrient trading, therefore, could allow sources of pollution such as WWTPs and municipal stormwater programs to meet their pollution targets in a cost-effective manner and could create new revenue opportunities for farmers, entrepreneurs, and others who implement low-cost pollution reduction practices.

The bill would establish a baywide nutrient trading market for the Chesapeake Bay watershed, allowing credits to be exchanged across state lines and among the watershed’s nine major river basins. A baywide nutrient trading market would build on the existing and pending state-level nutrient trading programs in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. A baywide nutrient trading market could help states and sectors more cost-effectively achieve courtordered nutrient pollution limits called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) that are being developed by the EPA. These TMDLs will set limits on nutrient loads to the bay and its tributaries for the agricultural, wastewater, municipal stormwater, and other sectors.

Preliminary analyses indicate that the economic benefits of a baywide nutrient trading market for nitrogen could be signifi cant for the agricultural, wastewater, and municipal stormwater sectors in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Depending on credit prices, trading potentially could:

Generate new revenue for the agricultural sector and other credit generators at an amount comparable to current levels of annual public funding for agriculture conservation cost-share programs for the bay;
Reduce nitrogen removal costs for some in the wastewater sector by as much as 60 percent; and
Save the municipal stormwater sector hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Additional Information

How Baywide Nutrient Trading Could Benefit Virginia Farms

How Baywide Nutrient Trading Could Benefit Maryland Farms

How Baywide Nutrient Trading Could Benefit Pennsylvania Farms

NEWS RELEASE: Suite of Policies Could Clean Up Polluted Waters

Jessica Forres — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:16:38 -0500

Lawmakers should consider a suite of policies to reduce harmful algal blooms and dead zones caused by eutrophication–the over-enrichment of nitrogen and phosphorous in freshwater and coastal ecosystems.

“Eutrophication is like climate change,” said Mindy Selman, lead author of a new report released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). “It’s caused by human activity, there is no single solution and addressing it will require a number of approaches.”

Eutrophication: Policies, Actions, and Strategies to Address Nutrient Pollution, the last report in a three-part series, identifies and highlights local, state and regional tactics to address nutrient and phosphorus pollution. Findings from the report suggest that lawmakers maximize outcomes by focusing on policies with numerous environmental benefits.

For example, while regulating nutrient discharge from wastewater treatment plants helps mitigate eutrophication, WRI’s research reveals that this approach has few environmental co-benefits, and could even result in significant environmental tradeoffs.

In addition, many of the technologies to remove nutrients from wastewater use a significant amount of energy. Depending on the energy source, this could lead to additional emissions of nitrous oxide (NOx), a pollutant that not only contributes to eutrophication when re-deposited on land and in water, but also contributes to smog and acid rain. Currently, atmospheric deposition accounts for 30 percent of the nitrogen pollution found in the Chesapeake Bay.

Some of the nitrogen that is scrubbed from wastewater might also be released as nitrous oxide (N2O) gas, which is a greenhouse gas with a warming potential that is nearly 300 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2).

“Because there are so many pathways, sources, and drivers of nutrient pollution, the policies that address eutrophication cannot be limited to traditional environmental regulations,” said Selman.

Policies encouraging energy conservation, energy efficiency and development of alternative energy resources have multiple environmental and public health benefits. Such policies would reduce the burning of fossil fuels—- a significant source of carbon dioxide, NOx and nutrient pollution in aquatic ecosystems.

Another approach which promotes considerable environmental synergies is agricultural policy that provides incentives to farmers who reduce nutrient pollution. For instance, growing vegetative buffer strips on farms not only prevents organic and chemical fertilizer from running off into the water, but can also improve wildlife habitats, reduce soil erosion, and sequester carbon.

Supporting research and development of new technologies should also be considered by politicians, WRI’s report concludes. In Florida and California, algal turf scrubber systems are being used to remove nitrogen and phosphorous in freshwater. The algae can then be harvested and used for cattle feed or biofuel production.

“Nearly 500 coastal areas around the country already suffer from dead zones and without decisive action by policymakers the number is expected to rise in the foreseeable future,” said Selman.”Lawmakers should carefully consider policies that maximize environmental returns.”

This report follows Eutrophication: Sources and Drivers of Nutrient Pollution. The first report, Eutrophication and Hypoxia in coastal Areas, is a survey of where coastal eutrophication is occurring worldwide.

Comparing the Economic and Social Value of Mangroves and Shrimp Farms

Maggie Barron — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:11:29 -0500

In the 1980s, Thailand’s government, initially supported by the World Bank, focused on a single ecosystem service—aquaculture—to supply a growing frozen shrimp export industry.

A retrospective analysis of the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms demonstrated that this decision was economically beneficial only if the analysis was limited to the values of the shrimp harvest and the mangrove’s marketable forest products. When the analysis was extended to cover the value of several nonmarketed ecosystem services, including coastline protection and a nursery for wild fish, maintaining intact mangroves became the sound economic development choice.

World’s Waters Choking from Meat Consumption and Other Human Activities

Jessica Forres — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:59:09 -0400

Greater meat consumption and demand for fossil fuels worldwide are expected to cause increasingly more harmful algal blooms and dead zones in coastal and freshwater areas.

“Nutrient pollution in aquatic ecosystems, or eutrophication, is a rapidly growing environmental crisis,” said Mindy Selman, the lead author of a new report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI). “Nearly 500 coastal areas already suffer from hypoxia. Our research indicates that number is expected to rise in the foreseeable future.”

Eutrophication: Sources and Drivers of Nutrient Pollution, the second report of a three-part series, finds that developing countries will see more nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in coastal and freshwater areas in the coming decades as a result of population and economic growth.

“More people and rising incomes will increase the demand for food, energy, land and other natural resources, which will ultimately lead to greater agricultural production and burning of fossil fuels to heat homes, power cars, and fuel industry,” added Selman, a senior associate and water-pollution expert at WRI.

According to the research, worldwide per capita meat consumption is expected to rise by 14 percent by 2030. When factoring in population growth, the rise equates to an estimated increase of 53 percent in total meat consumed globally.

Increased livestock production will have significant implications for the severity of nutrient pollution, particularly in countries without effective environmental regulations. For example, meat production in China has increased by 127 percent from 1990 to 2002, but fewer than 14,000 livestock operations have pollution controls.

Selman added that “one swine operation in the Black Sea region that is now closed had more than 1 million pigs and generated sewage equivalent to a town of 5 million people.”

The manure from these operations is often applied to fields as fertilizer and then leaches and runs off into nearby waterways. According to the report, 80 percent of the nitrogen used in swine production is excreted as manure or lost to the environment during the production of animal feed.

The report also suggests that the demand for energy will increase eutrophic conditions worldwide. Total global energy consumption is expected to rise by 50 percent by 2030 and a majority of that will be in the developing world.

“Though renewable energy sources are being developed, fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, are expected to continue meeting 86 percent of global energy needs,” said Selman. “When fossil fuels are burned, they release nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere, which are then deposited to land and water through rain and snow.”

Some studies have found that atmospheric sources of nitrogen are a significant source of coastal pollution, particularly in industrialized countries with high NOx emissions. In the Chesapeake Bay, atmospheric deposition accounts for 30 percent of the nitrogen pollution found in the watershed.

“Because there are so many pathways, sources, and drivers of nutrient pollution, the policies that address eutrophication cannot be limited to traditional environmental regulations,” said Selman. “Instead, policymakers must look more broadly at agricultural, energy, land use, and public health policies and find ways that these policies can be designed to mitigate nutrient pollution.”

The third report in the series will focus on the types of institutions, actions and policies that are critical for addressing eutrophication. The first report, Eutrophication and Hypoxia in coastal Areas, is a survey of where coastal eutrophication is occurring worldwide.

New Hope for the Chesapeake Bay, Maybe

Cy Jones — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:19:06 -0400

Presidential intervention has raised the stakes in a decades-long effort to clean up Chesapeake Bay.

Amid great fanfare, the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council recently announced new, short-term interim goals for reductions in nutrient loads reaching the Bay due to human activity. The first deadline, 2011, sets specific nitrogen and phosphorus goals that call for significantly greater progress from the watershed states – Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. After 2011, new goals will be established every two years, and all measures needed to restore the Bay are expected to be in place by 2025.

Adding political weight to this announcement was an Executive Order by President Obama, issued the same day, which:

Adopted the goal of restoring the Bay as a national priority;
Directed the EPA to use its full authority under the Clean Water Act to compel the actions necessary to restore the Bay;
Authorized the creation of a Bay Federal Leadership Committee to coordinate federal action; and
Directed USDA working lands and land retirement programs to target priority watersheds, and focus on reducing nutrient and sediment loads to the Bay.

These are promising new strategies and tools. What remains to be seen is if there is sufficient political will to follow them through.

Implementing the Executive Order in the manner required to successfully restore the Bay will entail actions that politicians have avoided until now - either because they would be politically unpopular or because they would involve raising substantial new revenues from the public through taxes and fees.

The Chesapeake Bay Blue Ribbon Finance Panel (PDF) estimated in 2003 that cleaning up the Bay would cost $28 billion dollars, a figure that dwarfs existing and planned federal and state spending. This shortfall represents a serious impediment to the adoption of interim and accelerated goals, and to the increased emphasis on enforcement mandated by the President. Yet no mention of costs was made in Tuesday’s announcements. A second serious impediment to success is that some elements of the current tributary strategies for restoring the Bay are either impractical or prohibitively expensive.

On the positive side, the Executive Order embraces an adaptive management approach that will enable states to take incremental steps in the right direction. If done properly, this will result in available resources being directed to the most efficient and cost-effective strategies for improving the Bay’s health.

Based on WRI’s long track record of working on Bay clean-up strategies, here are some realistic, effective actions that states can take now as part of an adaptive management strategy.

Eliminate or modify unrealistic components of tributary strategies: Current urban stormwater strategies would require about $15 billion to implement yet would achieve relatively small nutrient load reductions. Cost-effectiveness could be dramatically improved by allowing local jurisdictions to meet their stormwater-related nutrient obligations by purchasing some nitrogen and phosphorus credits on the trading market. Existing septic strategies also suffer from unaffordable costs and small nitrogen and phosphorus load reductions, as well as being impractical to implement. In Maryland, for example, it would cost at least $4 billion to upgrade all of the state’s 440,000 septic systems under the state’s open-to-all grant program. The strategy could produce far greater nitrogen load reductions, much more cheaply, if it mainly targeted septic systems in the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area (within 1,000 feet of the Bay shoreline).
Improve the cost-effectiveness of conservation funding: To maximize environmental return on investment, federal and state conservation programs that make payments to farmers and other landowners should be revised to target funding to critical watersheds and should incorporate a “pay for performance” approach. One example is to award conservation funding competitively, based on cost-per-pound of nutrient reduction.
Implement a Bay-wide nutrient trading program: Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia have implemented in-state nutrient trading programs, or are in the process of doing so. These seek to reduce the cost of achieving nutrient loading goals and to accommodate growth in the face of tight nutrient caps. Broadening the nutrient trading market to the entire Bay watershed would increase the robustness and stability of the market, improve credit supply and demand dynamics, maximize competition, and reduce overall costs.
Find ways to remove nutrients already in the Bay and its tributaries: Proven methods, such as constructing wetlands or restoring tidal marshes, already exist. Additional innovations have been proposed but await compelling demonstration of their benefits. One such approach is oyster aquaculture, which has the potential to result in the removal of significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus. Algal Turf Scrubbing (ATS) is another promising technology with the potential to remove large amounts of nutrients. Neither new nor speculative, it simply awaits a serious demonstration of its potential capabilities.

The public is out of patience with the Bay restoration effort. The President and the Governors have recognized this and promised to take the tough actions necessary to make real progress. Among the first actions taken should be a genuine commitment to cost-effectiveness and implementability.

Uganda Wetland Maps Will Help Reduce Poverty, Boost Economy

Paul Mackie — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:02:24 -0400

Uganda’s leaders now have access to maps that will allow them—for the first time ever—to reduce poverty through better management of the country’s wetlands.

This map from Mapping a Better Future shows that highly impacted wetlands are spread widely across Uganda and are located in areas with both low and high poverty levels. Such data confirms that there is no straightforward relationship between poverty levels and potential wetland degradation. Policymakers can use this information to flag certain subcounties where close coordination between wetlands management and poverty-reduction efforts could be beneficial for both wetlands and local populations.

High-resolution version of this map

“Wetlands affect the daily lives of every one of Uganda’s citizens and provide a powerful wall of protection for Uganda’s economic development,” said Paul Mafabi, commissioner of the Wetlands Management Department in Uganda’s Ministry of Water and Environment, during an event to officially release the maps here today at the Statistics House.

The maps appear as part of a new report, Mapping a Better Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda, produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with Uganda’s Wetlands Management Department, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, and the International Livestock Research Institute.

Maps included within the report demonstrate that both poor and developed areas in Uganda have experienced wetlands degradation, dispelling the myth that wetlands loss only occurs in poorer areas.

Mafabi, a co-author of the report, added, “These maps and analysis enable us to identify and place an economic value on the nation’s wetlands. They show where wetland management can have the greatest impacts on reducing poverty.”

Defined as areas where plants and animals have adapted to temporary or permanent flooding, wetlands are found in every county in Uganda. Used primarily for water collection, livestock grazing, and natural resource harvesting, wetlands also filter water pollutants, regulate flooding, and provide medicinal alternatives for poorer citizens.

“Poor people are highly dependent on wetlands for daily subsistence and cash-generating activities, such as selling products made from papyrus,” said Norbert Henninger, a WRI expert on East African ecosystems and a co-author of the report. “The short-term financial incentives from converting wetlands for crop use or real-estate development are often not aligned with the long-term benefits provided by managing and conserving these ecosystems for the public good.”

The report builds upon efforts undertaken during the last 15 years by the Ugandan government to promote sustainable wetland management. Both Uganda’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan and the 10-year Wetlands Sector Strategic Plan, launched in 2001, have emphasized the need to balance poverty reduction and wetlands management.

Between 1995 and 2005, the government spent US$2 million to develop the National Wetlands Information System as an inventory and tracking system of wetland use in Uganda—the first of its kind in Africa. Simultaneously, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics produced detailed maps showing poverty levels across the country.

“Uganda has made considerable progress in identifying its wetlands and mapping poverty areas, but analysis of the two sets of data has been kept separate,” said Jonathan Lash, WRI president. “This research fills that void and should allow policymakers to promote land-use changes that improve the lives of all Ugandans.”

Mafabi added, “The key next steps for Uganda will be to complete and update the national wetlands data system, and to apply economic valuation to all major wetland products and services, particularly their importance in filtering drinking water supplies and regulating hydrological flows. Recognition of poverty-wetlands linkages will help officials prioritize and plan strategies that reflect the importance of healthy wetlands to the citizens of Uganda and the national economy.”