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Efforts toward systematic conservation planning for freshwaters have progressed less than similar efforts in terrestrial and marine environments. Although there are important differences, many of the tools that have been used in terrestrial and marine systems can also be used for freshwater conservation planning. In this paper, we used return on investment (ROI) analysis to identify optimal riparian land conservation portfolios under different objectives. Our overarching research question is: how do different strategies for evaluating ROI objectives influence the resulting conservation portfolio and the outcome of interest, lake water quality? We examined agricultural riparian land investments to improve water quality in 55 inland lakes in southwestern Michigan. We simulated investments and compared the ROIs for the following strategies: (1) economic; (2) ecological; and (3) environmental policy. Furthermore, as a reference point, we also compared the resulting three conservation portfolios to that derived by simulating riparian land enrollment under the Conservation Reserve Program. We found that (1) investments in freshwater resources through the conservation of riparian land were more effective than the conservation of randomly selected parcels of similar land area in the catchment; (2) the costs and benefits of riparian land conservation varied considerably among lakes; (3) the choice of investment objectives, and therefore ROI strategies, resulted in very different conservation portfolios; (4) the simulated enrollment process of the Conservation Reserve Program fared poorly in terms of improving lake water quality as compared to the three strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A ubiquitous problem for community-based regional environmental agencies is to set strategic management priorities among a myriad of issues and multiple stakeholder perspectives. Here, we quantify the strategic management priorities for natural capital and ecosystem services using multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in a case study of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board (the Board) region. A natural capital and ecosystem services framework was tailored to present decision-makers with a range of potential issues for strategic consideration as goal hierarchies in MCDA. Priorities were elicited from the Board and its four regionally based consultative groups using the Analytical Hierarchy Process and swing weights. Centered log ratio transformed weights were analyzed using multiple pairwise ANOVA comparisons (Dunnett’s T3) and hierarchical cluster analysis. Substantial variation in priorities occurred between decision-makers. Nonetheless, analysis of priorities for assets and services robustly demonstrated that water was the highest priority, followed by land, then biota, with atmosphere the lowest priority. Decision-makers also considered that environmental management should not impact negatively on built or social capital. Few significant differences in priorities were found between decision-maker groups. However, clusters of manager types were found which represent distinct alternative management strategies, notably the prioritization of either intermediate or final ecosystem services. The results have implications for regional environmental decision-making and suggest that embracing variation in perspectives may be a better way forward for multistakeholder MCDA. The study operationalizes natural capital and ecosystem services by providing strategic priorities for targeting management and policy within the context of community-based, regional environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]