Conservation & sustainable development

We advise on measures to improve all aspects of water security, particularly for rapidly-growing cities in complex developing country contexts.

Our work includes the careful interrogation of environmental policy through ecological economic analysis. Some examples include policies on plastic waste, and understanding and dealing with different forms of land degradation.

We have strong interests in informing policy on strategies to improve the productivity and quality of life in our rapidly growing cities. Our work includes detailed assessments of the functions and value of natural capital in cities, and on best management practices for dealing with urban runoff.

We undertake studies to understand environmental problems and to devise strategies to address them. These include studies of community conservation initiatives and the design of incentive mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services and certification programmes and studies relating to the financing and roll out of ecosystem restoration, including water and conservation funds. This work includes carrying out surveys, behavioural experiments, choice experiments and financial modelling in conjunction with biophysical modelling.

We are internationally-recognised leaders in the application of multidisciplinary methods for the quantification and valuation of ecosystem services for natural capital accounting, as well as for economic analysis and environmental impact assessment. We model and value the consumptive use of resources, recreation and tourism, ecosystem functioning, and the intangible values of biodiversity, using state of the art spatial techniques and econometric methods. Our valuation studies are uniquely grounded in a thorough understanding of the underlying biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

We offer analysis of ecological and economic impacts of climate change and adaptive measures in terms of resource management and protection, in both terrestrial and marine landscapes (including vulnerability, fisheries risk and bush encroachment). This includes research on ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), which is linked to much of the work we do. Irrespective of whether climate change is the key focus, many of our projects take the implications of future climate change into account as an important and integral part of our thinking.