Objectives

The WATER project will develop a market based catchment restoration scheme which will be based on a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) model and aims to identify both delivery and funding mechanisms to lever private investment for catchment restoration by:

1. Developing a substantive Channel wide cooperation network that identifies our shared common identities and problems and can deliver environmental restoration of wetted land within a river catchment in a cost effective way.

2. Develop a set of five robust cost/benefit guides that demonstrate how investment from private companies in catchment restoration can make a long-term impact on their profitability and competitiveness, inline with the Lisbon agenda, and ensure the sustainable development of the environment, inline with the Gothenburg agenda.

Simply put the people and businesses that benefit from good ecosystem function will pay directly the people who deliver good ecosystem function. They will do this because they have a clear understanding of the economic, social and environmental benefits as demonstrated by the WATER project.