Conservation By Geography

The Great Lakes Watershed Ecological Sustainability Strategy (GLWESS): Transactions for Agricultural Ecosystem Services

The Watershed Ecological Sustainability Strategy (WESS) is a collaborative effort of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, LimnoTech, Michigan State University and The Nature Conservancy. WESS is designed to guide agricultural watershed management in the Great Lakes for clean, abundant water to meet the needs of people nature. It is deployable from the farm-field to large-scale watersheds.

About the Strategy

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WESS transparently enables goal-setting and decision-making for all involved watershed parties, especially the agricultural supply chain and federal/state/local governments, interested in sustaining environmental health and economic activity. WESS was tested in real-world case study transactions to demonstrateg application potential. It has gone ''live'' and is now deployed in early stages of application across parts of the supply chain. At this point WESS is a first generation application, and is expected to improve over time as technology and information management systems advance, adoption expands, and demand grows for clean water from agricultural regions.

• Final project report

• Paradigm Shift project brochure

• Diagram of the Great Lakes Watershed Ecological Sustainability Strategy

Projects

The WESS framework is built upon biological response curves to set real-world goals and the use of widely-adopted models to enable the quantification of impacts of management decisions to reach those goals. WESS was tested in real-world case study transactions, including direct farmer payments, county drain assessments, nutrient service provider certification and farm operation certification to demonstrate application potential.

Models and Tools to Inform Trasactions: Developing Science-based ''Currencies'' for Sustainability Transactions. Models were used to inform the establishment of realistic watershed conservation goals. Models and information were also used to support new types of transactions that link conservation management practices to ecosystem improvement outcomes.

Certification Programs. Certification programs for companies or products, farms and agriculture retailers were assessed for their ability to scale and verify conservation actions for improved ecological outcomes.

Farmer Willingness to Provide Environmental Services. Farmer willingness to implement conservation practices that provide ecological benefits drives the impact of performance-based programs. Using four experimental auctions and two large-scale auctions, the team examined which types of conservation payments attract farmers to make bids that give the greatest ecological bang for the buck and what factors encourage farmers to participate in conservation auctions.

Agricultural Drain Management. Agricultural drainage systems are pervasive across the southern Great Lakes grain belt. This project set out to determine whether existing transactions could be amended to better align conservation practices with drain management objectives and public drain fee structures.

Additional Resources

Outreach Materials

• Change the Conversation info sheet

• Project components of the GLWESS strategy will be featured in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of the Great Lakes in 2016 (forthcoming).

• The strategy was presented at a preconference workshop AM-3 Coordinated Approaches to Enhance Ecosystem Services in Watersheds Dominated by Agriculture, at the conference of A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES), Washington, DC, December 8-12, 2014. Presentations include:

• Coordinated Approaches to Enhance Ecosystem Services in Watersheds Dominated by Agriculture, by Joe DePinto

• Designing Conservation Auctions for Aquatic Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Watersheds, by Leah Palm-Forster

• Public Drain Fee Reduction Program to Support Biological Watershed Outcomes, by Randy Dell

• Linking Watershed and Coastal Ecosystem Models to Assess Harmful Algal Bloom Production in the Western Lake Erie Basin, by Todd Redder

• Linking Agricultural Land Management Decisions and Lake Erie Ecosystem Services Using Integrated Ecological Economic Modeling, by Wendong Zhang

• Farming America's Breadbasket: A Paradigm Shift, by Dennis McGrath

• 2015 Great Lakes Agriculture Strategy Review Workshop materials:

• Overview of Strategy and Workshop (link to presentation in Prezi)

• Drain Fee Reduction in Van Buren County, MI

• Saginaw Bay Regional Conservation Partnership Program

• Farmer Willingness to Engage in Transactions for Cost-effective Provision of Aquatic Ecosystem Services

• 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program 

Models

• Tiffin River SWAT Modeling report

• Draft Technical Approach for Lake Erie Phosphorus Load-Response Modeling, Annex 4 report

• Applying tools and model findings in Saginaw Bay, MI

• Animation of model applications: Harmful algal blooms in Western Lake Erie for 2011 nutrient loads, actual (left panel) and 50% reduction due to targeted BMPs (right panel).

• Great Lakes Watershed Management System

• The Role of Agricultural Activities in Re-ocurrence of Microcystis Blooms in Lake Erie: Why Should I Care? Workshop presentation, October 2012

• Toward a Great Lakes Watershed Ecological Sustainability Strategy: Modeling Workshop May 3, 2012

• Economic Transactions and Ecological Models presentation

• An Overview of the Modeling Used in Great Lakes CEAP and Enoughness Projects presentation 

Supply Chain Certification

• Using Market Based Mechanisms to Reduce Pollution from Great Lakes Agricultural Watersheds. Workshop summary

Agricultural Retailers

• the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program encourages agricultural retailers, service providers and other certified professionals to adopt proven best practices through the 4Rs, which refers to using the Right Source of Nutrients at the Right Rate and the Right Time in the Right Place. Learn more.

 Company and Product Certifications

• Limitations of Certification and Supply Chain Standards for Environmental Protection report

• Prospects for Using Supply Chain Standards and Certification to Reduce Water Pollution by Commodity Crops in the Great Lakes Basin, Workshop presentation by Kurt Waldman, John Kerr and Katherine Groble, October, 2012.

 Farm Certification

• Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP)

• Map of MAEAP verified farm acres in Saginaw Bay, MI as a percentage of watershed row crop acreage

Farmer Engagement

• Harris, L.M., S.M. Swinton and R.S. Shupp. 2014. "Experimental Auctions to Evaluate Incentives for Cost-effective Agricultural Phosphorus Abatement in the Great Lakes." Selected paper for presentation at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, Minneapolis, MN.

• Palm-Forster, L.H. and F. Lupi. 2015. “Using Value Transfers and Functional Transfers to Estimate Welfare Loss from Lake Erie Beach Closures at Multiple Scales.” Selected poster for presentation at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association 2015 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, CA.

• Harris, L.M. and S.M. Swinton. 2012. Using BMP Insurance to Improve Farm Management.

• Harris, L.M. and S.M. Swinton. 2012. Designing Effective Conservation Auctions.

• Swinton, S.M. and L.M. Harris. 2012. GLWESS Phase II: Designing Transactions to Gauge Farmer Willingness to Provide Environmental Services in the Lake Erie Basin.

Drain Management

• Smart Assessments: Reduced Maintenance, Cleaner Water and Fewer Complaints. Pipeline Magazine, Vol. 24, no.2, Summer 2015, p.26-31.

• Kerr et al. (2013). Using Fee Reduction to Promote Agricultural Soil and Water Conservation: An Application to Michigan Drain Commissioners.

• Drain cost study interim report

• Understanding Drain Assessments in Michigan

• Van Buren County Conservation District Drain Apportionment Methodology