In plain English
Water Restoration Certificates
Water Restoration Certificates is a water method run by Bonneville Environmental Foundation. People often refer to it by its code, WRC. It works in the water restoration space.
In short
Well-established corporate water-balancing certificates that translate restoration projects into volumetric estimates.
What it is
Water Restoration Certificates are a voluntary, market based instrument from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation that fund projects to restore water to dewatered rivers, streams, wetlands, and groundwater, mainly in North America. Projects give farmers, ranchers, and other water users an economic incentive to change water management so that water is left in or returned to critical freshwater ecosystems, and each project is verified by a third party. One Water Restoration Certificate represents 1,000 gallons of water restored to a freshwater ecosystem.
What it rewards
The reward is a credit called a Water Restoration Certificate (WRC). One credit stands for one cubic metre of water saved, cleaned or returned to a river. One cubic metre of water supplied, purified or conserved. A whole period of work is issued as one batch of credits at a time, in the same way a registry issues a batch.
What gets measured
To earn WRC credits, a project has to measure and prove a few things. An independent reviewer checks the evidence before any credits are issued.
The catchment and the kind of water work being done, such as replenishment, saving water or cleaning it up.
The starting water balance for the catchment, before the project.
The net amount of water benefit measured for the period, checked by an independent reviewer.
Who takes part
Standard Registry. Owns the policy, approves participants, anchors each issuance to its evidence.
Project Proponent. Registers the project and submits monitoring reports.
Validation & Verification Body. Independently validates the design and verifies monitored data.
How it works
- 1
The project team registers the project and its plan.
- 2
An independent reviewer checks that the plan is sound and that the benefit is real and would not have happened anyway.
- 3
The team looks after the site and measures the agreed indicators over time.
- 4
The independent reviewer verifies those measurements.
- 5
Credits are issued for the verified result, and a buyer can retire a credit to claim the benefit once.
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