Evaluating how we evaluate success: Monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management in Payments for Watershed Services programs

Payments for Watershed Services (PWS) programs have become an increasingly popular policy mechanism both in the U.S. and abroad. These programs are used to meet a variety of objectives, including improving the quality and quantity of water supplies, protecting endangered species, and advancing rural livelihoods. Monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management are important for filling fundamental knowledge gaps and improving the efficacy of PWS on the ground. However, relatively little work has evaluated how programs themselves monitor and evaluate their impacts and whether adaptive management is utilized. Here, we seek to improve understanding of the factors that contribute to the adoption of monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management practices through a literature review and a survey of PWS programs. Based on qualitative and logistic regression analyses, financial, technical and institutional capacity and leveraging broad stakeholder coalitions emerged as important factors contributing to systematic PWS monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management. This research underscores the importance of investing additional resources to support such capacity and coalition-building in PWS to ensure programs can meet their desired objectives.