HOUGHTON, MICHIGAN – Mexico is paying upstream landowners to use their land to minimize pollution and maximize water availability in the communities that use that water downstream. It’s a very popular program in Mexico, but no one really knows how well it is working.
Two researchers from Michigan Technological University have joined with natural and social scientists from three other universities and the US Forest Service to study the impact of Mexico’s water payment program.
“Our findings will help governments, non-governmental organizations, the World Bank and others who might promote programs like these to design their programs to be as effective as possible,” said Alex Mayer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Tech and co-principal investigator (PI) on Michigan Tech’s part of the research.
Michigan Tech will focus on payments for hydrologic services in the state of Veracruz in southern Mexico, where landowners upstream are being paid to preserve forested land and plant new trees instead of clearing the land to grow crops or graze cattle.
“We have watersheds right here that are being impacted by many human activities, such as mining, timber harvesting, residential and commercial development,” said Kathleen Halvorsen, a professor of natural resources at Michigan Tech. “Like the people in Mexico, we have nonpoint-source pollution that is hard to trace, such as from land use-related soil erosion and contaminants from roads, lawns, and parking lots. What we learn there definitely could help us here.”
For the full story, see http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2014/march/story104329.html.
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