There is increasing recognition of the connection between nature and human well-being. Restoring or conserving natural systems, or developing nature-based infrastructure, can contribute to human health, as evidenced by the numerous cases in which human-induced alteration of the environment has resulted in increased prevalence of disease. In order for government policymakers, lenders, developers, and advocacy groups to consider environmental impacts on human well-being when making decisions, they need tools to analyze the outcomes of a range of development options.
The Natural Capital Project specializes in the co-development of tools and approaches to support decisions that benefit both people and nature. Its free, open-source software, Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), supports spatially-explicit decision-making that considers the value of ecosystem services under different development scenarios implemented at scale. Urban InVEST provides modules specific to cities to model how incorporating the value of nature into urban design can be a win-win for people and the planet. Urban InVEST contains modules on urban heat island mitigation, coastal vulnerability, stormwater management, flood risk mitigation, recreation, mental health, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, noise attenuation, and air quality.
Results/Conclusions
The Natural Capital Project’s InVEST model has been used to analyze the value of natural capital in reducing coastal vulnerability and identify locations where conservation or restoration of coastal habitat is most beneficial in terms of protecting human life and property. Evaluating and valuing the benefits of improved forest management has been used to direct investments to forest restoration in California. These management practices will help reduce the risk of forest fires that claim lives and property, cause short-term spikes in air pollution and long-term environmental damage, and cost billions in recovery. With respect to infectious diseases, the InVEST software platform is actively expanding to include modules that will evaluate the impact of changing natural capital on the prevalence of schistosomiasis and mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and chikungunya. Through its approach of co-designing environmental management and development strategies with local communities, and the use of InVEST to identify the locations where investment in natural capital produces the greatest benefits, the Natural Capital Project supports linking basic science and field experiments to policy and management decisions to create impact at scale.