Testing factors that enhance private participation in payments for ecosystem service programs targeting flood mitigation

To address the severe consequences of low participation, more studies are needed that empirically evaluate how different factors affect enrollment in payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs. In this paper, we provide empirical insight into how different land-leasing, purchase, and management arrangements might affect potential participants’ willingness to enroll in these programs. We administer a choice experiment in the coastal plain of the State of North Carolina (USA), to explore how a hypothetical, flood mitigation-focused PES program could optimize participation across a variety of natural infrastructure practices and across multiple aspects of program design. We find evidence that higher proportions of total household income from farming have a significant relationship with the likelihood of participation in PES programs that seek to mitigate flooding. Other factors that we examined – including income loss from past flood events, respondents’ previous participation in PES programs, and different combinatorial arrangements of payment structuring and timing – had no discernable relationship to initial decisions about program participation. Furthermore, we find evidence for the importance of previous participation in PES programs as a key factor in decisions regarding the extent or level of program participation. In light of this, we propose a risk-based reframing of PES program participation decisions. From this risk avoidance perspective, we theorize that potential participants who are more dependent on farming revenue for their income may be proportionally more risk averse to any actions that could complicate farming or endanger future farming revenue.