The Crystal River Payment for Hydrological Services Role-Play Negotiation Workshop Survey Instruments

Abstract

Researchers designed and implemented pre- and post-workshop surveys with participants in two stakeholder workshops in the Mexican state of Veracruz in November 2018 and September 2019. The workshops focused on payment for hydrological services (PHS) programs, where landowners preserve forested land cover in exchange for a payment. The survey’s purposes were to understand which aspects of PHS programs participants consider important, and to evaluate a role-play as a method for learning among participants and for generating policy insights.

Introduction

Researchers designed and implemented pre- and post-workshop surveys with participants in two stakeholder workshops in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The workshops focused on payment for hydrological services (PHS) programs, where landowners preserve forested land cover in exchange for a payment. The surveys purposes were to understand which aspects of PHS programs participants consider important (Section A in both surveys “PHS Choices”), and to evaluate a role-play as a method for learning among participants and for generating policy insights (Section B in the pre-survey “Contextual Questions” and Section B in the post-survey “Contextual and Self-Evaluation Questions”. The surveys also collected demographic information (Section C “Participant Background Information” in the pre-survey). The surveys built on prior evaluations (Haug et al. 2011; Stokes and Selin 2016; Rumore et al. 2016; Meya and Eisenack 2018). This document aims to make the surveys and consent forms openly available in English and Spanish to anyone who wants to build on this research.

A total of 69 individuals were engaged across the two PHS workshops. The surveys were self-administered, in person, and in Spanish. Workshop organizers assisted participants who could not read or write. The first workshop was held in November 2018 in Coatepec and organized by the research team in collaboration with the two local PHS administrators and a local university. Recruitment aimed to engage participants from a diverse range of stakeholders, including representatives from governmental institutions, nongovernmental organizations, academia, industry, landowners receiving payments from PHS programs, including small private landowners, ejidatarios, and household water users who make payments to one of two local water agencies. Of the 52 individuals participating in the first workshop, 44 completed the surveys (85% response rate). The second workshop was conducted in September 2019 in Xalapa and organized by Xalapa’s PHS program administrator. Recruitment aimed to engage landowners from the Pixquiac watershed receiving payments from PHS programs and household water users from the City of Xalapa. Of the 17 individuals participating in the second workshop, all 17 completed the surveys (100% response rate).

The workshops were conducted as part of the project “Experimental Frameworks for Evaluating Net Effects of Hydrologic Service Payments on Coupled Socio-Ecohydrologic Systems in Mexico” funded by the USA's NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural-Human Systems (CNH) program (Grant No. 1313804). Additional funding for this survey research was provided by the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Collaborative Research Excellence (CoRE) Initiative. The University of New Hampshire Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research approved this study (IRB #: 7046; Study approval date: 10/25/18; Modification approval date: 11/5/18).

Department

Natural Resources and the Environment

Publication Date

2021

Document Type

Text

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS