Tag: data collection
A standard framework for assessing the costs and benefits of restoration: introducing The Economics of Ecosystem Restoration (TEER)
While the policy momentum behind ecosystem restoration has never been stronger, restoration finance remains insufficient. A crucial information gap to unlock finance is the lack of robust and consistent data on the costs and benefits of restoration. This is due in part to the wide variety of contexts, interventions and objectives of restoration projects, and to the absence of well-defined standards and protocols for cost and benefit data collection. To fill this gap, we developed a standard framework to assess the costs and benefits of restoration projects and specific restoration interventions. The associated template for data collection, which was tested for usability during a piloting phase, is the first output of The Economics of Ecosystem Restoration (TEER), a multi-partner initiative under the aegis of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It is the first attempt ever to improve the robustness and comparability of data on the economics of ecosystem restoration collected from the field at a global scale. Widespread adoption of this framework and associated template by a wide range of organizations implementing or financing restoration would allow for standardised data to be fed into a jointly owned database of restoration costs and benefits and serve as a basis for the further investigation of the economics of ecosystem restoration, including cost-benefits analysis. Better information on costs and benefits will help to inform acurate budgeting access to finance for restoration projects, and make them more likely to achieve their set goals and desired quantitative outcomes (e.g. area restored).
Peatland core domain sets: building consensus on what should be measured in research and monitoring
It is often difficult to compile and synthesise evidence across multiple studies to inform policy and practice because different outcomes have been measured in different ways or datasets and models have not been fully or consistently reported. In the case of peatlands, a critical terrestrial carbon store, this lack of consistency hampers the evidence-based decisions in policy and practice that are needed to support effective restoration and conservation. This study adapted methods pioneered in the medical community to reach consensus over peatland outcomes that could be consistently measured and reported to improve the synthesis of data and reduce research waste. Here we report on a methodological framework for identifying, evaluating and prioritising the outcomes that should be measured. We discuss the subsequent steps to standardise methods for measuring and reporting outcomes in peatland research and monitoring. The framework was used to identify and prioritise sets of key variables (known as core domain sets) for UK blanket and raised bogs, and for tropical peat swamps. Peatland experts took part in a structured elicitation and prioritisation process, comprising two workshops and questionnaires, that focused on climate (32 and 18 unique outcomes for UK and tropical peats, respectively), hydrology (26 UK and 16 tropical outcomes), biodiversity (8 UK and 22 tropical outcomes) and fire-related outcomes (13, for tropical peatlands only). Future research is needed to tackle the challenges of standardising methods for data collection, management, analysis, reporting and re-use, and to extend the approach to other types of peatland. The process reported here is a first step towards creating datasets that can be synthesised to inform evidence-based policy and practice, and contribute towards the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of this globally significant carbon store.