1. Division of Environmental Assessment
Developing a Roadmap to Maximize Natural Capital and Maintain Natural Infrastructure in Energy and Mineral Planning
June 22, 2017
An interdisciplinary profile.
Just as financial capital is depended upon in business, natural capital or ecosystem services, are the goods and services from nature from which human well being depend
Jacob Levenson
Marine Biologist
Division of Environmental Assessment

2. BOEM Information Need:
A Roadmap to Maximize Natural Capital and Maintain Natural Infrastructure
BOEM Information Need:
How can we implement an ecosystem services based approach across program areas that maximizes returns on natural capital, accounts for stakeholder values, and develops informed NEPA alternatives?
Date Required: Ongoing need
This study aims to answer this question by taking an investory and figuring a way to look at ES in our existing assessment framework

3. Background: What are Ecosystem Services?
“…the direct or indirect contributions that ecosystems make to the well being of human populations”
Highlights explicit connection between services provided by nature and the value to people.
First lets start with the basics.

4. Three Categories Provisioning Regulating Cultural
Goods produced or provided by ecosystems
Regulating
Benefits obtained from control of natural processes by ecosystems
Cultural
Non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment MA. Ecosystems and human well being: a synthesis report based on the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2005
Provisioning: crops, freshwater, timber, livestock, aquaculture, fibers, capture fisheries, wild foods, biomass fuel, genetic resources, and biochemicals
Regulating: pollination, water regulation, climate regulation, disease regulation, air quality regulation, erosion regulation, water purification, pest regulation, natural hazard regulation
(jen thinks this is a fish)
Cultural: recreation and ecotourism, ethical values, and existence values
Protecting our planet, securing our future : linkages among global environmental issues and human needs. Nairobi, Kenya: United National Environment Programme. p. 95. ISBN 
Watson, Robert T.; United Nations Environment Programme; (1999). 

5. What is an Ecosystem Services Approach?
An accounting ledger for nature
Identifies where to maximize across sectors
Balances costs and benefits of diverse ecosystem values to support decision-making
Values can be both use and non-use, now and into the future
Comprehensive approach to resource management
We can use ecosystem services to ensure we maximize value and benefits within existing regulatory framework.
Whether it’s subsistence hunting in the arctic, or jobs in the Gulf of Mexico, we can approach ecosystem services to maximize value and benefit within the existing regulatory framework
these values can be both market and nonmarket, on two time scales, now and into the future.
Rather than quantify resources as purely monetary, ecosystem services is a holistic approach to resource management which also incorporates non-monetary values.
Ecosystem services provide an accounting system for things that have been previously considered externalities
such as production of fish, crops, oxygen to breathe, clean water to drink, waste recycling by nature, wildlife that support tourism, wood from trees to build with and that soak up carbon from the atmosphere and the simple peace of mind that comes from camping or walking through a beautiful natural landscape, these items have not been viewed within NEPA, but actually do have a value in an ecosystems services framework. Ignoring previous externalities fails to create an ecosystem based approach to management. Now we realize these can be traded off, cultural value, aesthetic value, moral codes, quality of life that don’t involve money. You can say this is high or low cultural value and you can trade low culture value for something else. Not in actual dollars but values relative to an overall system.
EBM approach to resource management is about more than monetizing natural resources, it’s about a comprehensive ecosystem based implementation of NEPA rather than the current piecemeal approach of impacted resources.
An important component of ecosystem services includes tradeoff analysis.
Tradeoff analysis can reveal inferior management options, demonstrate the benefits of comprehensive planning for multiple, interacting services over managing single services, and identify ‘compatible’ services that provide win–win management options.
NRC. Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision Making. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2005.

6. Wind Farm Development in Massachusetts
Wind farm design
Random
Single-sector
Potential proposal
From Ecosystem service tradeoff analysis reveals the value of marine spatial planning for multiple ocean uses.Crow White et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2012
For information on efficiency frontiers in marine spatial planning see Lester SE, et al. Evaluating tradeoffs among ecosystem services to inform marine spatial planning. Mar. Policy (2012),
White et al PNAS

7. Wind Farm Development in Massachusetts
Wind farm design
Random
Single-sector
Potential proposal
White et al PNAS

8. Developing Alternatives: Wind Farm Development in Massachusetts
EF option
Efficiency frontier
Potential proposal
These maps of where exactly to develop the entire wind farm do not fit with BOEM’s regulatory framework, which is responsive to industry proposals. Instead, BOEM needs information to help them respond intelligently to the proposals they receive.
Value of Marine Spatial Planning
Up to 3% less impact to lobster fishery ($72k/y)
Up to 15% greater value to energy industry ($4.7b/y)
White et al PNAS

9. Integrating Ecosystem Service Into Impact Analysis
How can we improve impact analysis using an Ecosystem Services framework?
We have everything we need, we just need to connect the data together.

10. Study Objectives
Develop a “roadmap” for implementation of ecosystem service approaches to environmental analysis and monitoring across BOEM programs.
Catalog existing data sources and derived products that could be used to implement ecosystem service analysis.
Develop products in support of communicating ecosystem service analysis to non-experts to facilitate meaningful interactions with stakeholders.
Roadmap: Connect the dots from studies to EIS to tradeoff analysis to monitoring
Identify what data we have, and can help more clearly inform what’s needed.
Develop some kind of educational overview to how this information can be used for non-experts
Analyze environmental impact documents and what data sources and derived products could be used to implement ecosystem service analysis

11. Relationship with Previous Work/Efforts:
Basic
Advanced
Marine Assessment Programs for Protected Species affords spatial information
Sand and wind resources descriptive studies
Scenarios for Replacing Conventional Energy with Offshore Renewable Energy along the Central California Coast 
Productivity and Ecology of Sand Habitats
Managing Dredge Impacts by Optimizing the use of Sand Resources
Nearly every study involves some type of ecosystem service from basic mapping to maximizing efficiency
We robust past efforts, yet contained within individual subject matter stovepipes. We can do better to ensure that natural capital stakeholders depend on is extensively accounted for.

12. Relationship with Concurrent/Future Efforts
Other Relevant Information:
Regional ocean plans in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic now require conducting some kind of tradeoff analysis
BEST
Pacific Study
Northeast Sand Shoals Tradeoffs

13. Methods
Inventory of data products used in BOEM’s environmental analyses
Identification of opportunities for incorporating ecosystem services approaches
Include facilitated meetings with BOEM staff and an expert working group
Guidance on spatially explicit dynamic models

14. Relationship to Strategic Science Questions
How can BOEM best assess cumulative effects within a framework of environmental assessment?
What are the effects of habitat or landscape alteration from BOEM regulated activities on ecological and cultural resources?
How can BOEM better use existing or emerging technology to achieve more effective or efficient results?