Conservation programs provide billions of dollars of project funding annually. And all projects are good for conservation, right? Actually, not really. There is a real cost to failing to implement the highest-impact, most cost-effective projects.
A smart, data-driven approach to managing scarce conservation funding is available. Here’s how:
In the case of Oregon’s Willamette River, heat is affecting the health of the water resource, home to threatened salmon and used by hundreds of thousands of people for drinking water. A lack of trees and shade along the riverbanks is one major cause of the river heating up. If you consider more than 100 miles of riverbanks along the Willamette and its tributaries, where is the best place to start to repair the river?
Planting new trees and shrubs along almost any riverbank could create more shade. But some locations are better than others. South banks are better than north banks. Larger parcels have room to plant more new vegetation than smaller parcels. Sites that lack trees due to historical clearing have more to repair. With some thoughtful planning on where and how to start planting, the benefits realized can be greater. And the money spent can go further.
The role of analytics
The Freshwater Trust (TFT) used an analytical approach to evaluate the entire Upper Willamette watershed—many rivers, streams and creeks across multiple subbasins all at once. This approach rapidly assessed a multitude of options across the large geography to identify where taking action will have maximum impact.
For stakeholders in the Upper Willamette, this approach provided a method to compare the benefits and costs of a “nature based” program such as planting trees against other options (such as building infrastructure on land to cool the water) to make an informed, fiscally responsible decision.
TFT’s analytical tool, called BasinScout®, used layers of environmental data to identify conservation opportunities that create the most benefit.
With the first layer of analysis, the large landscape (more than 700 parcels over 800 acres) transformed into tiered groups based on environmental benefit. The top tier (70 or so parcels) had the highest potential for producing a large shade benefit. The lowest tier contained parcels that will produce very minimal benefit.
The instinct might be to award funding to projects in order of the greatest environmental benefit they will produce. But there is more to consider:
BasinScout then added an economic lens to calculate and prioritize sites by the cost-effectiveness of each opportunity. This layer of analysis created a suite of potential projects representing the best mix of both high environmental benefit as well as cost-efficient to implement.
For example, piecing together multiple small parcels into one planting project can reduce solar load, but the transaction costs incurred with multiple landowners can drain a lot of time and money. Focusing instead on more cost-effective projects (larger parcels or contiguous parcels with the same owner) generally yields even greater environmental improvement from the same level of resource investment.
Cost comparison of implementing a prioritized suite of projects vs. not
Cost-efficiency comparison by The Freshwater Trust of reforestation projects along the Upper Willamette River and its tributaries. The analysis considers both the conservation benefit (such as amount of shade produced over the water) and the implementation and maintenance costs of that benefit. Potential projects clearly separate into higher and lower cost-effective tiers, where the highest efficiency third is almost 50 times as efficient as the lowest efficiency third.
Using analytics to actively recruit restoration sites
The output from BasinScout guided the targeted recruitment of planting sites that provide the highest amount of benefit for the lowest cost in the Upper Willamette basin.
Using maps and lists of prioritized projects, the conservation team was empowered to seek out partnerships with specific landowners of high-impact sites instead of relying on scattershot participation.
Awarding funds on a first-come, first-served basis to landowners would not have provided the assurance that the program’s environmental goal would be achieved before the funds were exhausted. For example, if the program implemented projects solely in the order they came in through an application process, then it is possible to end up implementing too many projects from the lowest efficiency tier, where the price to achieve a desired environmental benefit is high ($0.75 versus $0.02 per kilocalorie). In this situation, the team could end up spending a lot of money.
Instead, understanding the “dollars per kilocalories” relationship upfront allowed the team to dedicate funds and staff time to the set of prioritized projects that are most cost-effective. This helped keep the program on track both ecologically and financially. A strategic recruitment approach also helped work within limited capacity. This included a conservation team who juggled heavy work loads, a small number of specialized restoration contractors, and a limited supply of native trees and shrubs. Staff were able to recruit multiple high-efficiency sites in parallel, using their limited hours in the most productive way. Not every landowner chooses to participate, so the mix of sites in the highest efficiency and middle efficiency tiers provided multiple options.
Fiscal responsibility
Conservation programs guided by precision analytics deliver “more bang for the buck” to ratepayers, taxpayers, and government and foundation funders. The analytics make what seemed like a large, amorphous challenge into something defined and achievable.
In the Upper Willamette basin, water resource managers got clarity to forecast actions, costs, and capacity needs for the years ahead. Conservation program managers asked specific questions of the data to adaptively manage choices as landowners of priority sites said yes or no. Stakeholders, ratepayers and the public were able to view progress and track results of the shade program.
One conflict that might arise with this approach is centered on the idea of “spreading the wealth.” This is when limited conservation funds are chosen to be distributed evenly across a geography or jurisdiction for political or social reasons, such as the perception of fairness. Research shows that this “spread out” approach, when not informed by data, can actually create a suboptimal environmental result as well as a more expensive program.
One way to create parity is to choose sites that are high-impact, cost-effective, and meet social goals. For example, conservation teams can select publicly owned sites from the suite of high-efficiency projects so that reforestation improves water quality and wildlife habitat in the watershed while also enhancing green spaces that can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone, not only a private landowner.
Other ways to apply precision analytics for conservation
This analytical approach centered on cost-effectiveness can be applied to many conservation goals and actions. In addition to riverbank shade programs, TFT has also applied this approach to optimize the installation of agricultural irrigation systems to reduce water quality pollutants such as excess nitrogen and phosphorus.
For example, a program along the Snake River required a high level of landowner participation on a short timeline. Fortunately, the prioritized portfolio from BasinScout contained a large pool of high efficiency parcels, from among more than 21,000 parcels in the basin. From this large pool, TFT identified a program-level efficiency target of $500 per pound of phosphorus reduction, allowing for simultaneously recruiting dozens of projects while still targeting most of the recruitment toward the top 25% of highest-impact, cost-effective irrigation equipment upgrades.
On Colorado's Western Slope, TFT is working to help address multiple challenges, including irrigation demand, instream flows, and stream impairments. We are building decision support tools that have the flexibility to prioritize multiple factors during program design. This is furthering our efforts to scale conservation and build solutions that help deliver conservation funding in the most cost-effective and impactful way possible.
Olivia Duren and Eleanor Bash contributed to this article.
