ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Management
Volume 8 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2025.1587763
Overcoming barriers and uncertainties to investing in forested watershed restoration in California
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States
- 2Northeaster University, Boston, Boston, United States
- 3University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria
- 4University of California, Merced, Merced, California, United States
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Large-scale investments in restoring California's forested watersheds are necessary to conserve biodiversity, improve water quality, and reduce the future impacts of climate change in the state. This study explores incentives, challenges, and strategies associated with investment in forest watershed restoration. We distributed an online survey to 43 experts, and the collected data were then analyzed through a combination of confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis. Our findings show that environmental outcomes such as reducing wildfire risks and protecting water supply are principal motivators for investment, while notable barriers include costs, workforce capacity, and limited trust among stakeholders. We also identify a set of strategies that could potentially be effective in overcoming the identified barriers beyond obtaining adequate financial resources, such as reframing forest restoration as an infrastructure investment and clarifying the ecological, social, and economic benefits of watershed restoration. Overall, this paper emphasizes the importance of increased flexibility of funding frameworks, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and improving data infrastructures in order to facilitate the future investments needed to improve the resilience and sustainability of California`s forested watersheds ecosystems.
Keywords: Forested watersheds, restoration, California, Investments, Climate change mitigation
Received: 04 Mar 2025; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ayompe, Padilla, Eriksson, Egoh and Bales. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lacour Mody Ayompe, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States
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