This report estimates the overall size and scope of the payments directed to protect or restore watershed services and accounts for the full spectrum of watershed services.  Also looks at the opportunities and challenges based on the current level of transactions, experimentation and lessons learned.

This report aims: to use project-level data to estimate the overall size and scope of the payments directed to protect or restore watershed services; to account for the full spectrum of watershed services activities and track changes going forward; and to look ahead at the opportunities and challenges based on the current level of transactions, experimentation, and lessons learned. The scope of this report encompasses a wide view of watershed payments to include all efforts where an entity makes payments to a beneficiary for management practices that address impacts on watershed services in both upstream and downstream areas of the watershed.