The above graphic illustrates one of the main challenges of watershed protection: jurisdictional and watershed boundaries rarely align. This issue generates questions about who is responsible for, and who should pay for, watershed protection. Over the past decade, the Environmental Finance Center at UNC has developed and applied the concept of a revenueshed to help communities answer such questions. We define a watershed protection revenueshed as the area within which revenue is generated for watershed protection. Thinking in terms of this concept can help address watershed protection challenges by (1) cultivating accountability, (2) generating discussions among local governments, and (3) developing interactive financial tools to assist in policy decision-making. In a recent report for the Conservation Trust of North Carolina, we applied the revenueshed concept to the local framework of North Carolina’s Upper Neuse River Basin.
