Benefits of Healthy Watersheds

Healthy watersheds are characterized by both natural lands and well-managed agricultural and developed lands that support intact and connected aquatic habitat and good water quality conditions. Healthy watersheds provide a variety of benefits, or ecosystem services, critical to our economic and social well-being. 

Visit EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research webpage for more information about ecosystem services and resources/tools to evaluate their benefits.

Fact Sheet: The Economic Benefits of Protecting Healthy Watersheds (2026) (pdf) (2.52 MB, April 2026, EPA-841-F-26-001)
This fact sheet compiles state-by-state evidence demonstrating the measurable economic returns of watershed protection across six benefit categories: drinking water treatment cost savings; natural hazard mitigation; recreation and tourism; subsistence hunting, fishing and foraging; quality of life and health; and property values. The fact sheet draws on peer-reviewed literature and studies published since the original 2012 publication to illustrate how healthy watersheds generate substantial, quantifiable returns that extend well beyond environmental outcomes. Case studies range from Alaska’s $170–340 million in subsistence harvests across rural communities to Tampa Bay’s $31 million in annualized flood protection benefits from coastal wetlands.

Fact Sheet: The Economic Benefits of Protecting Healthy Watersheds (2012) (pdf) (833.14 KB, April 2012, EPA 841-N-12-004)
The original Economic Benefits of Protecting Healthy Watersheds fact sheet (2012) highlights examples of the economic benefits of protecting healthy watersheds found in peer-reviewed literature and studies from the early 2000s.