16 ene. 2017
Research Brief // Payments for Ecosystem Services and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus
By Jean Carlo Rodríguez de Francisco. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are an established instrument for addressing externality problems among different natural resource users. In a nut shell, PES consist of cash or in kind payments by downstream users of ecosystem services (henceforth “buyers”) to upstream land users (sellers of ecosystem services, henceforth “sellers”) to ensure the adoption or maintenance of land uses likely to improve the provision of ecosystem services.
In the context of the water-energy-food nexus. PES has especially been used to direct private and public investment into ecosystems and watersheds that underpin drinking water provision but also energy and food production. In connection with the nexus debate, PES, thanks to its potential use as a tool for cross-actor and cross-sector coordination (Hoff, 2001), is being presented as an instrument which embodies the nexus approach.