Lecture 11 InVEST PDF

10/25/2020 11. InVEST ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE VALUATION Mara Thiene Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs - InVEST Despite the importance of ES, t...

10/25/2020 11. InVEST ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE VALUATION Mara Thiene Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs - InVEST Despite the importance of ES, this natural capital is poorly understood, scarcely monitored, and undergoing rapid degradation and depletion. We need to include nature’s values into decision-making , in order to enable managers to broaden their perspectives by considering the multiple, interlinked consequences of their decisions. We Need Tools to Map and Value Ecosystem Services. The Natural Capital Project is developing models that quantify and map the values of ecosystem services. The modeling suite is suited for analyses of multiple services and multiple objectives. Based on Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) 1  10/25/2020 Who should use InVEST? InVEST is designed to inform decisions about natural resource management. It provides information about how changes in ecosystems are likely to lead to changes in the flows of benefits to people. Decision-makers (governments , non-profits, corporations) often manage lands and waters for multiple uses and inevitably must evaluate trade-offs among these uses. InVEST’s multi-service, modular design provides an effective tool for exploring the likely outcomes of alternative management and climate scenarios and for evaluating trade-offs among sectors and services. https://naturalcapitalproject.stanford.edu/software/invest (Source: Natural Capital Project) 2  10/25/2020 InVEST can help answer questions as: Where do ecosystem services originate and where are they consumed? How does a proposed forestry management plan affect timber yields, biodiversity, water quality and recreation? What kinds of coastal management and fishery policies will yield the best returns for sustainable fisheries, shoreline protection and recreation? Which parts of a watershed provide the greatest carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and tourism values? Where would reforestation achieve the greatest downstream water quality benefits while maintaining or minimizing losses in water flows? How will climate change and population growth impact ecosystem services and biodiversity? (Source: Natural Capital Project) What is InVEST? InVEST is a tool for exploring how changes in ecosystems are likely to lead to changes in benefits that flow to people. It often employs a production function approach to quantifying and valuing ecosystem services. A production function specifies the output of ecosystem services provided by the environment given its condition and processes. Once a production function is specified, we can quantify the impact of changes on land or in the water on changes on the level of ecosystem service output. It uses a simple framework delineating “supply, service, and value” to link production functions to the benefits provided to people. InVEST is a free software open source license & work in progress. (Source: Natural Capital Project) 3  10/25/2020 InVest and NatCap Projects Information about changes in ecosystem services is most likely to make a difference when questions are driven by decision-makers and stakeholders, rather than by scientists and analysts. The Natural Capital Project has used InVEST in over 20 decision contexts worldwide (as of 2014) (Source: Natural Capital Project) InVest and Decision-making process (Source: Natural Capital Project) 4  10/25/2020 Models in InVEST Models are grouped into two primary categories: Supporting Ecosystem Services (support, but not directly provide benefits to people): 1. Marine Water Quality 2. Habitat Risk Assessment 3. Habitat Quality Final Ecosystem Services (directly provide benefits to people): : 1. Carbon Storage and Sequestration: Climate Regulation 2. Blue Carbon Storage and Sequestration: Climate Regulation 3. Water Yield: Reservoir Hydropower Production 4. Nutrient Retention: Water Purification 5. Sediment Retention: Avoided Dredging and Water Purification 6. Pollinator Abundance: Crop Pollination 7. Coastal Exposure and Vulnerability 8. Wave Attenuation & Erosion Reduction: Coastal Protection 9. Unobstructed Views: Scenic Quality Provision 10. Nature-based Recreation and Tourism 11. Managed Timber Production 12. Wave Energy Production 13. Offshore Wind Energy Production 14. Marine Finfish Aquacultural Production 15. Marine Fisheries Production (*coming soon) (Source: Natural Capital Project) Introduction 5  10/25/2020 Example The Chinese national government has a program to set up conservation areas to protect the natural capital. Where should these areas be located? This is an optimization question. To answer : we need to know which areas of the landscape provide the highest level of services at the least cost. we first use production function and economic valuation models to estimated ES levels and values we than feed these maps into optimization algorithm that determines which parts, if protected or managed in a certain way, meet goals set by the policy make for ES provision at the lowest cost (e.g. n. hectares, purchase value of the land, opportunity cost of forgone activities, …) (Source: Natural Capital Project) Application 1 Carbon Storage and Sequestration: Climate Regulation 6  10/25/2020 Terrestrial ecosystems store more CO2 than atmosphere (4 times). InVEST model uses maps of land use and land cover types and data on wood harvest rates, harvested product degradation rates, and stocks in four carbon pools (aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, soil, dead organic matter) to estimate the amount of carbon currently stored in a landscape or the amount of carbon sequestered over time. Additional data on the market, social value of sequestered carbon, its annual rate of change, discount rate can be used in an optional model that estimates the value of this ecosystem service to society. (Source: Natural Capital Project) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 7  10/25/2020 (Source: Stanford, 2011) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 8  10/25/2020 (Source: Stanford, 2011) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 9  10/25/2020 Carbon Storage and Sequestration Inputs Outputs Land Use Land Cover Carbon Storage Carbon storage varies per and Sequestration land type and over time Carbon Pools Value of Amount of carbon per LULC type, hardwood sequestered and products stored carbon Economic values Price of carbon, price change, discount rate (Source: Stanford, 2011) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 10  10/25/2020 (Source: Stanford, 2011) Carbon Pools: above, below, soil, dead (Source: Stanford, 2011) 11  10/25/2020 (Source: Stanford, 2011) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 12  10/25/2020 Strengths and/or Weaknesses Data requirements are simple Both biophysical and economic valuation modeling possible Simplified carbon cycle; Carbon sequestration only occurs when land use changes over time or wood is harvested Economic valuation assumes a linear trend in sequestration over time Output is sensitive to accuracy of land use classes and carbon pool data (Source: Stanford, 2011) (Source: Stanford, 2011) 13  10/25/2020 (Source: Stanford, 2011) Case study: Willamette Basin (Oregon, US) Use of InVest to investigate changes in carbon sequestration levels under two different future land use scenarios Steps: 1. Quantifying carbon currently stored 2. Compute carbon sequestration under the two scenarios 3. Monetary evaluation of carbon sequestration 14  10/25/2020 Scenario 1 Current land use Future land use Scenario 1 Current land use Future land use 15  10/25/2020 Scenario 2 Current land use Future land use Application 2 Pollinator abundance: Crop pollination 16  10/25/2020 Seventy-five percent of globally important crops rely either in part or completely on animal pollination. The InVEST pollination model focuses on wild bees as a key animal pollinator. It uses estimates of the availability of nest sites, floral resources and bee flight ranges to derive an index of bee abundance nesting on each cell on a landscape (i.e., pollinator supply). It then uses flight range information to estimate an index of bee abundance visiting each agricultural cell and an index of the value of these bees to agricultural. production Wild bees need: Food - pollen, nectar Nesting sites - trees, ground Wild bees provide: Increases crop yield and quality Food security 17  10/25/2020 Population dynamics of pollinators (Source: Wolny, 2011) The model The Crop Pollination Model works in four steps: i) Calculation of an index of bee abundance across the landscape; ii) Calculation of an index of the number of pollinators likely visiting crops in each agricultural cell on the landscape; iii) Translation of bee abundance into crop value on each agricultural cell; iv) Attribution of these cell values back to cells supplying the bees. 18  10/25/2020 The model: Approach to abundance 1. Calculate the abundance of bees in each cell of the landscape. - Nesting sites in that cell - Floral resources in surrounding cells 2. Calculate the abundance of bees visiting each farm cell - Flying range of pollinators - Pollinator abundance in surrounding cells (Source: Wolny, 2011) The model: Approach to evaluation Assumption: yield increases as pollinator visitation increases, but with diminishing returns. 1. Calculate crop yield value in farm cells - Abundance of bees visiting farms - Half-saturation constant - Proportion of total yield attributed only to wild pollination (Source: Wolny, 2011) 19  10/25/2020 The model: Approach to evaluation 2. Crop value is redistributed back to cells that supplied the relevant pollinators - fractions of the farm cell’s value is attributed at each of the bee species, according to their partial contribution to total farm abundance. Then each species’ value is redistributed back to the source cells from which they came, according to distance of each of them from the farm cells. (Source: Wolny, 2011) Input data Land use/land cover map Land use attributes (N_Cavity/N_ground: relative index of availability of nesting within each LULC type on a scale 0-1. F_spring/F_summer: relative abundance of flowers in each LULC) (Source: Wolny, 2011) 20  10/25/2020 Input data Table of pollinator species (NS_cavity/NS_ground: nesting guilds of each pollinator; FS_spring/FS_summer: pollinator activity by floral season; Alpha: average (or typical) distance each species or guild travels to forage on flowers) (Source: Wolny, 2011) Half saturation constant Converts the pollinator supply into yield and represents the abundance of pollinators required to reach 50% of pollinator-dependent yield. Future land cover map To evaluate change in pollination services under a future scenario Output maps Pollinator species abundance over whole landscape (sup_tot_cur) Pollinator species abundance on farms. It represents the likely average abundance of pollinators visiting each farm site (frm_avg_cur) Pollinator service value. The higher the value, the higher the contribution of the cell to the economic value of near agricultural cells. Economic value of yield increase of crops (sup_val_cur) 21  10/25/2020 Applications Land use planners: consequences of policies on farmers Farmers: crop location Land trust: invest in places that benefit both biodiversity and farmers Payments for ecosystem services Limitations Relative index of abundance and value only No population dynamics over time The model does not account for the sizes of habitat patches in estimating abundance. For many species, there is a minimum patch size, under which a patch cannot support that species over the long term. The model does not include managed pollinators, such as honey bees, that are managed in boxed hives and can be moved among fields to pollinate crops 22