• The role of the farmers
• In climate change mitigation
• In watershed protection services
• Land management
• Water quantity
• Water quality
• In biodiversity conservation
• Preserving agriculture landscape

In watershed protection services

Land management

Improving sustainable land management practices can foster a more efficient use of the water and reduce pollution problems, thus contributing to increase the quantity and to improve the quality of water available.

Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of all water use in the world and up to 95 percent in many developing countries(7).  It thus influences both the quantity and quality of water available for other human uses as well as for wild plants and animals.
Improving agricultural practices can foster a more efficient use of the water and reduce pollution problems, thus contributing to increase the quantity and to improve the quality of water available. Farmers’ most important contribution to this is to increase water productivity in their farms, while land management options to deliver an actual increase in water flows remain uncertain.  Table 2.2 summarizes a set of management practices that farmers can adopt to increase watershed protection.

Table 2.2 – Agricultural Practices and Watershed Protection(8)

Ecosystem Service	Farm-Level Management	Landscape-Level Management
Water quality maintenance	Reduce and control timing of agrochemicals, filter agricultural runoff	Maintain perennial vegetative filters protecting waterways
Erosion and sedimentation control	Soil conservation and runoff management; zero tillage; perennial soil cover	Road, path and settlement construction methods; vegetate stream banks
Salinization and water table regulation	Tree-growing	Strategic tree-growing in the landscape
Water flow regulation	Increase irrigation use efficiency, protection of wetlands, farm drainage	Well-designed road and path construction, re-vegetation of bare lands
Aquifer recharge	Plot- and farm-level water harvesting	Community/sub-watershed water harvesting
Flood control	Diversion and storage ponds	Drainage channels and storage ponds; maintain natural floods

In many countries, farmers don’t pay or pay very little for the water they use (irrigation accounts for 70% of global water withdrawals(9)) and consequently have no incentive to reduce the amount of water used and wasted.  Likewise, in the absence of enforced regulations to reduce water nitrate levels, or in presence of subsidized pesticides, farmers are not made responsible for their impact on water resources. 
PES schemes protecting the ecosystem services of a watershed can fill in this gap by providing farmers with information on the impact of their current practices and by supporting them in the adoption of more water-friendly land use practices.

Watershed protection services are delimited by watershed boundaries and are primarily of local interest.  They are also scale-dependent and efforts in water use management or non-point source pollution control require the coordination of all land users within the entire sub-catchment.  As this is normally a very difficult undertaking, most ongoing PES schemes begin with land users within the highest priority areas, and expand to others at a later stage.  Normally this initial stage has also the goal of demonstrating buyers that the chosen land management options can deliver some improvements, in the hope that more of them will come forth with contributions that will allow for the scheme’s expansion - see the next sections for details on managing water quantity and protecting water quality.

Payments for Environmental Services from Agricultural Landscapes - PESAL
is a project funded by the FAO Netherlands Partnership Programme © FAO 2010