Investing in nature-based solutions : cost profiles of collective-action watershed investment programs

Abstract

Highlights: • We surveyed costs of municipal-scale collective-action watershed investment programs. • Administrative and transaction costs on average account for over one-third of total costs. • Average annual costs varied more than 50-fold among programs during first ten years. • Programs need to budget for high administrative and transaction costs throughout full program life cycle. We obtained full cost data from 18 Payments for Watershed Services (PWS) programs: 4 in Brazil, 4 in Ecuador, 2 in Colombia, 2 in the Dominican Republic, and 1 each in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, China and South Africa.