Spatial targeting of payments for ecosystem services to achieve conservation goals and promote social equity and economic impact

The objective of this research was to identify optimal spatial targeting and distributions of a fixed PES (payment systems for ecosystem services) budget that achieves the three objectives of maximizing forest‐based carbon storage to improve cost efficiency, maximizing poverty alleviation to promote equity, and maximizing economic impact to encourage economic development. We used the Central and Southern Appalachian Region as a case study to develop a county‐level framework for identifying optimal county targets and optimal budget allocations for forest‐based carbon sequestration that addresses the three objectives. The results show that optimal budgets are more geographically widespread under the multiple‐objective priority scenarios than under the single‐objective of maximizing carbon cost efficiency, and the optimal spatial distributions of the four priority scenarios do not change appreciably across priority scenarios. The quantified relationships reveal that different priority weights among the priority scenarios yield both competitive trade‐offs and synergistic relationships between the objectives.