Water credits putumayo

Water credits

Water credits are one of our six payment layers for smallfarmers and Indigenous groups guarding tropical forest.

ALL THE NERDY DETAILS…

Everyone always wants to know about our units, and we’re total #SolarPunks about simplifying the crazy stuff people come up with for measuring Nature. We always ‘measure what matters’.

Unit

1 water credit = 100 gallons of usable water per month

Note: "Usable" collapses the quality/volume distinction: water that exists but is too polluted to use isn't usable; clean water that isn't in the watershed isn't usable either. Both are necessary conditions. You might notice this unit is compatible with MGY aggregation for corporate reporting.

Sample protocols

As you know, we’re big on tangibility because it improves equity and outcomes.

Water credits are experimental protocols; there hasn’t been an industry norm so far. The really great projects we’ve seen in the US and China usually look at entire watersheds which might not be feasible at a micro-behavioral scale. There is good scientific work on behaviors, though. While we normally like outcomes-based economics, we think science-backed behaviors are the only thing we can authentically reward right now.

Our current protocols are listed here. They’re just pragmatic semi-equivalents and need further research. We’ll likely have more protocols in the future based on our ongoing research. If you buy, you’ll find out which one you got when it’s matched to the participating smallfarmer.

  • Primary forest along waterways filters runoff through root uptake, soil infiltration, and canopy interception — removing 60–89% of suspended particles, nitrate, phosphorus, and organic carbon before they reach the channel.

  • Riparian conservation. Falls under a filtration + hydrology mechanism.

  • We estimate in the Colombian Amazon that literature supports 60–89% removal of key pollutants per buffer strip. At 1km conserved (both sides): ~120 credits/year. 1 credit = 100m of conserved waterway × 1 month. Full credit for forest on both sides; half credit for one side. Currently, it gets a higher grade if it has proof of a dragonfly, the apex predator of the insect world, as that’s a simple proxy metric for fish → water health.

Water credits tropical forest
Amazon water credits

  • Degraded riparian land actively reforested recovers filtration and hydrological function progressively — root stabilization and leaf litter interception begin immediately; canopy function approaches 50–70% of mature capacity by month 12.

  • Riparian restoration. Falls under a filtration + hydrology mechanism.

  • 1 credit = 100m of reforested waterway × 1 month. issued at 1/12 per month in year one as trees establish. filtration and hydrology function ramps to ~50–70% of mature capacity by month 12. Full credit rate from year two. 500m restored = ~5 credits in year one; ~10 credits/year at full rate.

Dragonfly biodiversity amazon

  • Activated biochar applied to soil adsorbs heavy metals, nutrients, and microplastics simultaneously — removing chemical, biological, and physical contaminants at >80% efficiency without displacing the water's mineral properties.

  • Riparian restoration. Falls under a filtration + hydrology mechanism.

  • 1 credit = 1 ton of activated biochar applied per site. Crediting period and saturation methodology still under development. Documented >80% removal efficiency for heavy metals, nutrients, and microplastics. 5 tons applied ~ 5 credits.

  • "We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."

    — Jacques Cousteau.

  • If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

    ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

  • "Thousands have lived without love, not one without water."

    — W.H. Auden

  • "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."

    — Albert Szent-Györgyi

  • "Clean water is not an amenity; it is an apology we owe the next generation."

    — Unknown

  • "Indigenous territories contain 36% of the world's remaining intact forests — and the watersheds inside them."

    — Savimbo

  • “Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

    ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves