In order to provide scientific information to support decision-making and strengthen the PHS in central Veracruz, this project sought to identify priority areas providing multiple ecosystem services using four modules of the InVEST software including water yield, carbon storage, sediment retention, and water purification.

Another objective was to establish long-term monitoring to evaluate the predictions of InVEST models that are often parameterized with static data from the literature organized into look-up tables. Furthermore, since the rapid transformation of natural ecosystems in the central part of Veracruz state means that the provision of ecosystem services will increasingly depend on the secondary vegetation and agroforestry systems, such as shade coffee plantations, another goal of this project was to assess the importance of shade coffee farms in priority areas that provide multiple ecosystem services. Finally, this project also sought to provide feedback to decision makers running PES programs in the region on the effects of their public policy, both in the context of future changes in land use, and in developed climate change scenarios in the state. This effort should improve the design of public policies focused on natural resources conservation and integrated watershed management in the study region. Once regional Tier 1 InVEST models were run with existing data from the literature, field monitoring was performed over a 14-month period within replicate (3) microwatersheds dominated by the five most common land uses in the region (N=15; primary and secondary forests, shade coffee, cattle pastures and sugar cane). Equipment was installed for monitoring local climate, surface flows, water infiltration rates, and water quality during low and peak flow conditions. In addition, forest inventories were performed and soil cores and tree rings collected for the assessment of carbon storage. A number of datasets were generated from this work including data from weather stations, monthly stream flow measurements, stream height, sample collection during peak flow events, forest inventories, growth rings measurement, infiltration rates, laboratory assays for water and soil samples. The secondary data that was used included that obtained from previously published studies, publically available GIS layers, and databases from nearby weather stations.