The Larimer County Department of Natural Resources (LCDNR) administers recreation on four of the reservoirs in the interconnected C-BT system–Horsetooth Reservoir, Carter Lake, Flatiron Reservoir, and Pinewood Reservoir. This report estimates that spending associated with reservoir park recreation totals $164 million per year and goes on to support $285 million in associated spending within Larimer County.
New Jersey’s water infrastructure systems often experience stormwater overflow, referred to as Combined Sewer Overflow, which puts communities at risk due to pollution and flooding. This study looks into how green infrastructure can be part of the solution for these communities.
Earth Economics partnered with Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) to produce Accounting for Nature with USDA-NRCS Conservation Practices in the Central Great Plains, a study on ecosystem services in the central Great Plains that revealed a broad sense of the economic importance of NRCS conservation investments in providing non-market benefits to communities.
Earth Economics collaborated with the Seattle 2030 Districts to develop a tool for property owners in Seattle to calculate return-on-investment from investing in water capture and reuse systems. The calculator was published in the "Harnessing the Rain for Building Performance, " a report by Seattle 2030 District and The Boeing Company.
This study presents an estimate of the total annual non-market economic value generated by the trust lands in Washington State. Non-market values describe benefits that are realized by communities, but which are not bought and sold in markets. These benefits do not have observable market prices and are often measured by revealed or stated preference methods. This differs from capital values presented elsewhere in this report that are defined by market prices for goods such as timber and food crops.
The Southeast Quadrant of South Burlington, Vermont encompasses a variety of natural capital assets, including forests, wetlands, streams, and agricultural lands. The open space ecosystems of South Burlington provide critical ecosystem goods and services, including clean air and water, fish and wildlife, aesthetic beauty, and outdoor recreation opportunities.
Greenville County’s proposed buffer expansion aims to improve water quality in the Reedy River watershed by increasing buffers around streams, rivers, and wetlands. Earth Economics conducted an analysis of the economic impacts of the proposed ordinance across eight different existing, planned, and proposed neighborhood development sites.
Earth Economics had the privileged opportunity to contribute to Agriculture Capital’s 2019 Impact Report: Regenerative Food The Value of Scale in the section, Regenerative Agriculture Builds Thriving Soil, found on pages 5-6. Our analysis focused on the limited scope evaluation of ecosystem service value of AC practices on select blueberry farms.
The Hunts Point community is proactively looking to reintroduce nature-based solutions to help reduce pressing environmental challenges, like persistent flooding, while also providing broad community benefits like access to parks and recreation, better air quality, and protection from extreme heat. Nature-based solutions have proven to be cost-effective for many resilience challenges throughout the world, often providing a high return-on-investment as measured through public and private benefits.
WHY DO WE NEED ACCOUNTING STANDARDS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MARKETS? Environmental markets are often established to use market-based mechanisms to reduce the pollution of air and water resources, and such markets have emerged as an important tool for “internalizing” the externalities associated with the activities of governments and private companies.
