LIFE URBASO proposes a model of payment for ecosystem services (PES) focused especially on providing economic incentives for increasing the provision of hydrological services (water quality and quantity) from forests, as well as generating synergies in terms of biodiversity and carbon sequestration in the soil and forest biomass.
The PSE model is based on the principle of conditionality: Payments for the provision of ecosystem services are made to forest land owners on the condition that they implement a forestry model closer to nature, primarily around surface water catchments intended for human consumption. The PSE model is designed to achieve the desired impact on soil protection and conservation, and thus positively influence the regulation of water flows and water quality. In addition, the design of the PSE model is based on favouring the spatial concentration of service-providing land around priority location areas. Therefore, the model incorporates an agglomeration effect based on the additional payment to those land owners who have properties adjacent to others who also participate in the PSE system.
According to the scientific literature, a local PES system, which aims to be effective and sustainable in the longer term, ought to be built around a governance system based on the active and equitable participation of key social actors. To this end, LIFE URBASO aims to facilitate from the outset an open and inclusive decision-making process that enables the necessary social and institutional legitimisation of the incentive-based model.
In this sense, LIFE URBASO incorporates a Social Multi-Criteria Assessment (SMCA) approach in its methodological design, which consists of a transdisciplinary and multidimensional tool to support decision-making processes. It involves, firstly, assessing the degree of technical optimality of an alternative set of possible PES like incentives by means of a multidimensional set of criteria. Secondly, the SMCA allows the integration of diverse opinions and interests of the social and institutional actors involved.
Lastly, with the aim of being economically profitable and therefore self-sufficient, the savings eventually generated in the process of treating water for human consumption, as a consequence of the implementation of a model based on “forestry close to nature”, would potentially compensate the total cost related to the design and management of the proposed PSE model.
