Natural Capital Index/Nature's Frontiers, Global

Quantifying potential improvements in economic returns, greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, and biodiversity through more efficient and effective land use change for countries globally. 

The Challenge:  
Estimating the integrated impacts of landscape configuration and land uses on multiple economic, greenhouse gas, water quality, and biodiversity benefits. The optimization analyses help identify multiple landscape configurations and management pathways to more sustainable and efficient futures for each country.

The Solution: 
Conducting interdisciplinary, spatial global analyses with collaborators at the World Bank. We are using the global version of InVEST's nutrient delivery ratio model. We are adapting existing models or developing new models for estimating economic returns from forestry, grazing, and croplands; and also for quantifying changes in biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of landscape configuration and land uses.

Project partners: NatCap at Stanford, NatCap at University of Minnesota, and the World Bank.  Funding: The World Bank; The Natural Capital Project