What Are BEF WRCs®?
Restoring vitality to critical freshwater ecosystems.
Without water, there is no life.
Water is the basis for life, and it is becoming increasingly scarce. Due to climate change and a steady growth in population, we can expect steeper droughts and more demand for water.1
What are BEF WRCs®?
The voluntary, market-based BEF WRC® program provides farmers, ranchers, and other water users with an economic incentive to devise new water management solutions that restore water to critically-dewatered ecosystems.
Why do we need BEF WRCs®?
Physical access to water is limited. When the demand outstrips the land’s ability to provide the needed water, you have water scarcity. There are an increasing number of regions in the world where physical scarcity is a man-made condition. In fact, water is becoming ever scarcer for the following reasons:
- We are withdrawing freshwater from surface water sources and groundwater aquifers at rates faster than it gets replenished or recharged.
- Much of the world’s fresh water is degrading. Even if there is enough water, it may not be good enough to meet human needs.
- Water demand is often insufficiently restrained because of inadequate price mechanisms and outdated legal rules that set few limits on excessive use.
- An increasing number of people on the planet create rising demands for water.
- Some technologies waste more water than alternative new technologies, but they are expensive to replace.
- High-demand users are sometimes geographically concentrated in regions that cannot sustain demand levels.4
How do BEF WRCs® work?
How BEF WRCs® help: Thankfully, ecological purposes, such as maintaining a natural body of water and the wildlife that depends on it, have been accepted as beneficial uses in some jurisdictions. This means that water rights holders can officially restore water to rivers and streams without giving up their valuable water rights forever. Some WRC projects are designed to facilitate the lease or transfer of water rights to be used for the benefit of the environment. By leaving water in the stream where it is protected and unavailable for any other use, WRCs help dewatered rivers and streams become healthy and flowing again.
How BEF WRCs® help: Addressing this challenge with modernized irrigation systems is just one of the innovative solutions that funding from the BEF Water Restoration Certificate® program supports. As a result, irrigators divert less water from rivers, thus restoring water to dewatered sections of vital streams and rivers.
How BEF WRCs® help: Water rights are permanently or temporarily acquired, and/or on-site construction activities are implemented to augment groundwater tables or increase the volume of water available to support ecological functions of wetland ecosystems.
Click here to see a detailed overview of WRC projects »
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Balance your water footprint today. Together, terrapass and BEF make it easy for you to get the BEF WRCs® you need to balance your water footprint and support sustainable water use.