Natural Capital World Viewer

Nature is critical to human wellbeing

Ecosystems provide people with crucial benefits, from clean water to nourishing food. Nature helps us adapt to a changing climate, provides us with materials to build our homes, and boosts human health. Earth’s ecosystems enable humans to thrive.

But the benefits we receive from nature are under threat. The impacts of human development are destroying the ecosystems that support and sustain us. 

How can we maintain human prosperity while safeguarding and regenerating the natural environment on which it depends?

Leaders want to design policies and make investments that equitably and efficiently secure nature’s benefits to people. But, they often lack access to the detailed information they need to take action.

Decision-makers need to know where and how nature is supporting people.

The Natural Capital World Viewer is designed to make nature’s diverse benefits to people easily accessible and understandable. This viewer allows users to explore several of the most important benefits nature provides to people.

Clean Water

Water is essential for life. There are many ways to measure clean water, but the two most common are through sediment retention and nitrogen retention.

Sediment Retention: Erosion causes issues for land degradation and water quality, with sediments (e.g. sand, silt, gravel) clogging waterways and often carrying diseases that can lead to water-borne illness. However, some of this erosion may be retained by healthy ecosystems, therefore regulating water quality in streams. People and infrastructure benefitting from sediment retention are those downstream from erosion sources who would otherwise be impacted by poor water quality.

Nitrogen Retention: Fertilizers like nitrogen are a major source of pollution for freshwater systems and drinking water. However, some of this nitrogen pollution may be retained by healthy ecosystems, therefore regulating water quality in streams. The people benefitting from nitrogen retention are those downstream from pollution sources, who would otherwise be exposed to nitrogen contamination in their drinking water.

Nature Access

Ecosystems provide numerous direct and indirect benefits to people, such as recreation, hunting and gathering, aesthetics (visual beauty), mental and physical health, cultural and traditional value, and sense of place. Many of these contributions depend on the ability of people to access nature, so we use proximity to natural lands as a proxy for nature’s contributions to people.

Coastal Protection

Coastal habitats—such as coral reefs, mangroves, salt marsh, and seagrasses—protect shorelines from the impacts of storms by absorbing and reducing the strength of waves. These habitats reduce the risk of flooding and erosion for coastal communities. The amount of protection provided by coastal habitats depends on the coastline's physical exposure to coastal hazards and the location of coastal communities and infrastructure.

Food Pollination (Coming soon to the viewer)

Up to two-thirds of all crops require some degree of animal pollination to reach their maximum yields, and natural habitat around farmlands can support healthy populations of wild pollinators (e.g. bees, birds, other insects) by providing them with foraging and nesting resources. The potential contribution of wild pollinators to nutrition production is based on the sufficiency of habitat that surrounds farmlands and how dependent a given crop is on pollination.

Livestock Grazing (Coming soon to the viewer)

The livestock sector provides income for over 1.3 billion people and occupies 30 percent of the Earth’s ice free surface area.