Abstract:

Increasing awareness of the importance of maintaining watershed functions has triggered various form of initiatives including providing incentives for people in upper watershed areas to protect watershed functions (Landells-Mills and Porras, 2002). It is known that land use can significantly affect watershed functions such as water quality, water flow, erosion control and sedimentation in downstream areas. However, to develop an effective reward mechanism requires clarity on relations between land use and environmental services that are of sufficient value to become the basis for reward mechanisms (Wunder, 2004). Rapid Hydrological Appraisal (RHA) is a tool that aims to provide such clarity, providing answer on (i) how the watershed function is provided, (ii) who could be responsible for providing this service, (iii) how watershed function is being impacted upon at present, and (iv) how rewards can be channeled to effectively enhance or at least maintain the function (Jeanes et al., 2006). The approach is based on the following activities that can be carried out in less than 6 months: (1) land cover/land use change analysis, (2) exploration of stakeholders’ local knowledge on hydrological functions, water movement and consequences of land use options on the landscape, (3) analysis of existing hydrological data and (4) modelling watershed water balance including scenario analysis of plausible land cover change and their likely impact on watershed functions.