Valuing the environment using the NEVO tool
Introduction
The NEVO Tool is a web application to help users explore, quantify and make predictions about the benefits that are derived from existing and altered land use across England and Wales. The tool is freely available to anyone and is designed to be easy to use, making it accessible to a wide range of users.
NEVO will be created by extending existing models developed by the University of Exeter, that recognise the characteristics of the environment, and how alternative uses cause multiple benefits, effects and trade-offs. It will work across multiple land uses such as agriculture, livestock, woodlands and urban areas, and consider hypothetical changes in a wide range of natural capital services (e.g. food production, water quality and quantity, greenhouse gas storage, recreation, biodiversity). NEVO will be developed and tested using a number of case studies in the South West.
Ultimately NEVO will support informed, transparent and efficient environmental decision making for a broad range of sectors, including valuing existing and new land use options, helping prioritise environmental interventions and investments and signposting those options that provide the greatest net benefits and value for money for the taxpayer.
The tool brings together spatially explicit data, natural science and economic models to provide insights into the integrated relationships between climate change, land use change, ecosystem service flows and economic values. Users are able to view information relating to a range of ecosystem services:
- Agricultural production
- Woodlands and timber production
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Recreation
- Biodiversity
- Water quantity
- Water quality
The tool allows users to choose the spatial scale that they are interested in. This ranges from 2km grid cell level, through administrative scales such as local authorities and government office regions (GORs) and terrain based scales such as river network sub-basins, up to country scale (England and Wales).
Click the icon below to link to NEVO and try it for yourself!
About the Author
SWEEP is a collaboration of three research institutions: the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and Plymouth Marine Laboratory – working together with a large group of highly engaged business, policy and community partners.
Contribute
Our aim is to promote geography and geographical education in the South West of England. Geography SW is a collaborative project driven by a group of enthusiastic geographers who have volunteered their time to create a wide-ranging and dynamic resource to support the wider geographical community.