How Does Nature Measure Up? Innovative Examples of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Nature-Based Solutions

ABOUT THE NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS: CURRENT ISSUES WEBINAR SERIES:
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are actions to protect, manage, or restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges. These solutions are varied and multi-purpose, and are important tools to simultaneously benefit both people and nature. Interest in NbS is growing from both the public and private sectors, as is the desire to scale up implementation-so conversations around NbS effectiveness, execution, funding, and policies are more crucial than ever. Explore current NbS issues, discover promising practices, and hear from experts working in this field during a new webinar series: Nature-Based Solutions: Current Issues. The series is organized by the National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) and the Resilience Roadmap project.

ABOUT SESSION ONE:
Session one of the Nature-based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series focuses on assessing the costs and benefits of NbS. How can we account for all the benefits NbS provide? How do they compare to more traditional (gray infrastructure) solutions? What is the return on investment for NbS?

This session will highlight innovative case studies that assess the costs and benefits of NbS, and how we might use that cost-benefit information to help scale these approaches. Join to hear from Mike Beck (UC Santa Cruz) on the cost effectiveness of nature-based coastal adaptation in the Gulf of Mexico, Anna Bettis (The Nature Conservancy) on a cost-benefit analysis of installing tree canopies to address extreme heat in Phoenix, and from Gregg Brill (The Pacific Institute, CEO Water Mandate) and Ivan Paspaldzhiev (Denkstatt) on benefit accounting and valuation of NbS for watersheds.