Funding water supply protection through conservation finance in the Yuba
River watershed
Topic: Funding water supply protection through
conservation finance in the Yuba River watershed
Speakers: Tessa Maurer,
Senior Project Scientist at Blue Forest Conservation,
Joanna Lessard,
Project Manager at the Yuba Water Agency
When:Friday, November 19th, 2021, 12 pm to 1pm
Where: Virtual (via Zoom)—Link to virtual
seminar to be sent upon RSVP
The recording of the webinar is available here.
Topic Overview
In the Western U.S., federally owned forests provide up to 52% of
drinking water supplies, but many are overstocked and at risk of fire,
tree die-offs, and other disturbances. Forest and ecosystem restoration
projects in these source water basins have the potential to protect and
enhance water resources. However, funding these projects at the pace and
scale needed to meaningfully address risks to our water supply is
challenging. Here, we discuss how understanding water-related benefits
of restoration projects can support increased funding through a
conservation finance tool, the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB). We explain
this financing model, present an example of a successful FRB project in
the North Yuba watershed in Northern California, and discuss how these
projects can benefit hydroelectric utilities like Yuba Water Agency. In
particular, we explore the science of quantifying water-related benefits
such as water supply enhancement and fire risk and how that knowledge
can be leveraged to support
an FRB.
About the Speaker
Tessa Maurer is a Senior Project Scientist at
Blue Forest Conservation. Her work focuses on bringing together
stakeholders to help fund forest treatment work using Blue
Forest's financial model, the Forest Resilience Bond, to
accelerate the pace and scale of restoration in the Western U.S.
In particular, she works on quantifying and understanding the
water resources benefits of planned projects to stakeholders
such as hydroelectric and drinking water utilities. Tessa holds
a Ph.D. in water resources and an M.S. in Civil & Environmental
Engineering, both from the University of California, Berkeley,
and a B.S.E. in CEE from Princeton University. Email contact: tessa@blueforest.org.
Joanna Lessard is a Project Manager at the Yuba
Water Agency and leads the Agency's Watershed Resilience
Program. Through these roles she works to develop collaborative
projects to increase the pace, scale and multiple benefits of
forest health and fire risk reduction projects. She represents
the Yuba Water Agency within the North Yuba Forest Partnership,
the flagship forest health and watershed restoration effort,
working to plan and implement key treatments across the entire
275,000 acre North Yuba River Watershed. JoAnna also manages the
5400 acre Healthy Forest Cal Fire Grant that is funding needed
forest thinning on public and private lands in upper Yuba
County. She brings a broad background in technical natural
resource research and management, funding strategy development,
and project coordination to these and other key Agency programs.
