Both people and ecosystems benefit from the sustainable management of natural and working lands, including application of nature-based solutions such as reforestation, floodplain restoration, and maintenance of riparian buffers in agricultural areas.
Decision makers and communities need accessible data to understand the value of natural and working lands—and the degree to which conservation and restoration efforts are helping maximize those benefits.
The Nicholas Institute’s Nature Activation Hub is working with federal agencies, state government, non-governmental organizations, and researchers to provide information about the benefits of natural and working lands and opportunities to sustain and enhance those benefits through management and policy. Examples of the Hub’s work in this space includes:
- Evaluating national datasets that could be used to track the benefits of natural and working lands and the data and modeling infrastructure to support ecosystem service assessments in the US.
- Creating a guide to developing state-level natural and working lands action plans.
- Identifying available datasets that could be used to track natural and working lands benefits across the US.
- Assessing how different types of land management influence biodiversity and carbon storage across natural and working lands in the US.
- Developing and mapping ecosystem service accounts for the southeastern US.
- Working with the state of North Carolina to create ecosystem services maps that inform the state’s Natural and Working Lands Action Plan and to make this information accessible through a series of North Carolina natural and working lands dashboards.
Tracking the Benefits of Natural & Working Lands in the United States: Dataset Evaluation and Readiness Assessment
The Nicholas Institute collaborated with the US Department of Agriculture to identify datasets ready to use in a national assessment of natural and working lands benefits and to highlight data gaps and limitations.
