Webinar: Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Farms and Forests

In this webinar, Lisa Wainger of the University of Maryland and David Ervin of Portland State University will discuss findings of a recent Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics report, The Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Farms and Forests, which resulted from an interdisciplinary project that they co-chaired.

Using a conceptual value framework and the best available science, the project teams—comprised of experts on water quality, forests carbon sequestration, and pollinator habitat—developed reliable and consistent approaches for assessing monetary and non-monetary benefits of national conservation programs.

The presentation will cover the process used to inform the systematic approach to quantifying benefits of conservation programs. It will focus on ecosystem service benefits generated by improved water quality and will touch on benefits resulting from pollinators and carbon sequestration by forests. Lessons will be reviewed to chart a path forward for ecosystem services valuation.

Advance registration is required.

Webinar: The Trump Administration and Greenhouse Gas Policy and Regulation

The Trump Administration's approach to greenhouse gas regulation represents a sea of change from the prior administration's broad initiatives. Nicholas Institute director Tim Profeta will serve on a panel for a webinar, jointly sponsored by the American Bar Association and the Air & Waste Management Association, that will examine the latest developments stemming from Trump administration actions: executive orders, rulemakings, Congressional Review Act repeals, policy, and litigation regarding greenhouse gas policy and regulation.

Registration is required.

CUAHSI Hydroinformatics Conference

Water policy associate Lauren Patterson will present “Internet of Water: Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability,” a keynote address at the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Hydroinformatics Conference in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 26. She will highlight findings of a report from the Aspen Institute Dialogue Series on Water Data that lays out a vision for a national policy framework that addresses institutional barriers to increasing the integration of water data and information to support sustainable water management.

Webinar: Canadian Ecosystem Services Toolkit

In this National Ecosystem Services Partnership webinar, Susan Preston of Environment and Climate Change Canada will discuss The Canadian Ecosystem Services Toolkit at 3 p.m. ET on August 2. 

Created on behalf of Canada's Federal-Provincial-Territorial governments' Value of Nature to Canadians Study Taskforce, the toolkit provides practical step-by-step advice on ecosystem services approaches; completing an ecosystem service assessment; understanding what the results of such an assessment mean; and incorporating ecosystem services analyses and considerations in a wide range of policy, decision, and management processes.

Advanced registration is required.

Annual American Water Resources Association Conference

Policy associate Lauren Patterson will co-present a session on the so-called Internet of Water at the Annual American Water Resources Association Conference in Portland, Oregon, November 7–8.

At the Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability session (November 7), she will discuss a national framework for sharing and integrating water data for sustainability, presenting findings from a recent Aspen Data Dialogue report, Internet of Water: Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability. Such a network would allow for real-time transmission of water-related data and information among regional data-sharing communities, revolutionizing how water resources are managed to address water problems such as extreme flooding, scarcity, contamination, and aquatic system degradation. Other presenters will describe the value of open data from the user perspective, California’s role as a data producer and data-sharing community, and the role of the Water Data Exchange, a platform to share and integrate data on water use across western states.

Patterson organized the Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability session (November 8), which will focus on one of the primary findings and recommendations from the Internet of Water report: the importance of demonstrating the value of open and shared water data to meet water management needs.