Valuing Water and its Ecological Services in Rural Landscapes: A Case Study from Nepal

Nepal is recently facing an acute scarcity of water in both rural and urban areas, villages and cities and for domestic and agricultural purposes, particularly in the pre-monsoon months. With changing climatic conditions, perennial rivers and streams have reduced flows and at times can even dry up altogether. Payment for Watershed Services (PWS) related to catchment conservation can play an important role in allowing communities to adapt to these changing conditions. In the region, PWS-like mechanisms that either reflect public payment schemes or self-organised deals are the most common.

We review a case study from rural Nepal, which has emerged as a PES - PWS like scheme. In this study, a community water user association in the areas of Rupa Lake has cooperated voluntarily with upstream users to establish direct, indirect and in-kind rewards for the provision of improved water quality. The process has been developed through local, traditional mechanisms, even in the absence of official markets for the environmental services in question.