| Izvleček: | The creation of a hydrological environmental services market implies to have information about the hydric supply and demand in a watershed. With the purpose to contribute on the last aspect, this study estimated the hydric demand in Tapalpa watershed in Jalisco, Mexico. Additionally, the water use value that was estimated by using the willingness to pay (WTP) technique and also by the opportunity cost analysis on the forest land use for water “production” is presented. The watershed has an area of 21 000 ha and half of it is forested. The demand analysis indicated that the hydric resource (HR) used is about 23 171 885 m3/year. 93 % of this total is used in the agricultural sector, mainly for vegetable production (50%) and basic crops (23%). When compared to other sectors, the calculated willingness to pay (WTP) value for the HR is higher in the service sector (76,7% of the interviewers said to be welldisposed). However, the biggest contribution to the total WTP was given by the domestic sector (46,5 %) with $3 064 301 Mexican pesos/year. Additionally, a direct relationship between study level and WTP for HR was determined. Age showed an inverse relationship with WTP. The estimated total WTP value resulted to be smaller than the estimated opportunity cost to conserve forest in the watershed, giving an annual deficit of $27 201 313 Mexican pesos. The total WTP represents only 10% of the opportunity cost. In addition, if the associate costs for recovering forest areas currently in other use (areas in conflict) were added, the annual deficit would increase to $45 130 988 Mexican pesos and the WTP would be reduced to 6 % of the total opportunity cost.
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