Using technology to better account for ecological uplift

By Grace Edinger, the Senior Manager of the Restoration Economy Center and Tim Baumgartner, Senior Environmental Manager of Ecosystem Planning & Restoration

Ecological restoration projects are put in the ground for many different reasons, and often corporations are the funders of these restoration projects. They do this to contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, their ESG scores, to gain positive publicity and shareholder input, simply to provide general environmental benefit, or for regulatory compliance.

What’s often left out of the messaging around these projects are the specifics. Surface-level headlines are great, things like “[Corporation Name] gives tens of millions to wetland restoration!” However, digging a little deeper can reveal little to no data backing these claims. How much restoration was successful? What types of benefits were incurred? Co-benefits like flood resiliency, improved water quality, reduced erosion, habitat, carbon sequestration, etc. are often left out of the picture.

The point is not to criticize these corporations; it’s fabulous that they are reaching into their deep pockets and paying for environmental benefits. But they could be telling even more compelling stories by sharing these projects’ economic impact, improvements to air quality, and other great things that come along with getting large-scale projects in the ground.

We know nature is complicated. Measuring intertwined elements of an ecosystem is difficult, which is why we tend to parse out the pieces that are easy to understand (tonnes of carbon). The firm, Ecosystem Planning & Restoration (EPR), has successfully developed a tool to calculate the significant values of restoration and relate the results into a clearly detailed reporting template. The Nature-Based Solution Assessment Tool (NaBSAT) is a modular designed tool quantifying five themes of uplift from nature-based solution projects: water quality, water quantity, air quality, biodiversity and habitat, and socio-economics. Separating from the typical singular goal existing with most ecosystem restoration and enhancement projects, the outputs of the NaBSAT values the up-lift of the ecosystem restoration activity and relates it to cost/benefit and the contributions to watersheds and communities. The tool is designed to meet the challenge of quantifying and reporting the ecological and human benefits of applying nature-based solutions in a range of ecosystems.

EPR recently ran this tool on an 18-year old restoration site that EPR’s Vice President Kevin Tweedy designed for Environmental Banc and Exchange early in his career. The results provide a great example of the NaBSAT’s capabilities. Let’s dig in.

Project Overview
The Westbrook Restoration Site was completed in 2005 as a compensatory mitigation bank (i.e., to offset impacts to waters from development). The project comprises two separate projects that were constructed in 2003 and 2005 and in total restored approximately 128 acres of riparian wetlands and over 2.4 miles of headwater streams. The site is located in North Carolina and connects to natural swamps and wetlands.Prior to restoration, the site included approximately 116 acres of farmland that had two channelized stream systems running through it. As a result, adjacent historic wetland areas had been drained, and onsite streams were maintained as drainage canals with minimal adjacent riparian buffers.

The Restoration
The restoration approach for the site included hiring a local construction contractor to build the designed headwater streams not only to improve stream function, but also provide restoration to adjacent wetlands that had been drained. Streams were restored to mimic the condition and function of nearby untouched streams, with a meandering pattern of shallow riffles and deeper pools to provide habitat. The restored stream was also more appropriately sized to allow larger flow events to spread out, reducing storm hazards and promoting stability. The former farmland was then replanted to a diverse native hardwood forest.

Assessment
Ecosystem Planning & Restoration used NaBSAT which takes data collected through GIS imaging and field measurements and calculates parameters under thematic metric buckets including water quality, biodiversity, socio-economics, and air quality, among others. It costs as little as a few thousand dollars to collect the necessary data and run the tool, and generates easy to understand reports that are backed by real data. These reports can easily be added to sustainability reports and marketing campaigns.

Take the Westbrook project we described above. Over the 18-year lifespan of the monitoring using the NaBSAT, the following uplift has been documented:

This is Important
With better quantification capabilities comes better accounting of uplift. Measurement and modeling are at the core of shifting our economy to be one that’s based in nature positive activities rather than one that’s based in ecological degradation. This relatively small project had an economic impact of over $8 million dollars. That’s amazing! Building the argument that doing good for the planet is also good for our wallets is extremely compelling and will help increase investment into these types of projects.

This changes the narrative from companies patting themselves on the back for paying for environmental projects without anything to back it up, to reporting specifically on the realized benefits that positively impact the community and environment.

“Nature-based ecosystem restoration efforts are important to ensuring we offset impacts upon nature. Without some verification of the benefits accomplished, we are missing a key part of the entire story.  What did we actually accomplish? The NaBSAT provides that verification and documentation to tell the complete story of the watershed benefits.”

-       Tim Baumgartner, Senior Environmental Manager of Ecosystem Planning & Restoration

The Restoration Economy Center, housed in the national nonprofit Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), aims to increase the scale and speed of high-quality, equitable restoration outcomes through policy change. Email Grace if interested in learning more, or consider supporting us!