The University of Helsinki has been awarded €2.5 million by the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation to support an interdisciplinary research project aimed at bringing natural capital into decision-making.
The project, which will explore ways to make the impacts of biodiversity visible in society, will bring together elements of ecology, economics and advanced statistical modelling, the university said in a statement, to explore the interconnectivity between biodiversity and economics.
‘An interconnected whole’
“Biodiversity and ecosystem services cannot be examined merely as separate benefits, because together they form an interconnected whole,” commented Professor Anna-Liisa Laine of the University of Helsinki, one of the researchers on the project.
The project will seek to foster the development of ‘cost-effective and reliable tools’ to support decision-making, and enable governments, policymakers and businesses to treat conservation, restoration and sustainable land use not simply as an environmental cost, but an investment in societal resilience.
“Biodiversity affects human well-being, health, and the economy in many ways, but these benefits are often not incorporated into decision-making,” said Professor Lassi Ahlvik, another researcher on the project.
“The project aims to develop tools that enable natural capital to be better reflected in societal decisions.”
Future economic scenarios
As they note, the research will also encourage the development of statistical methods capable of linking ecological monitoring data with societal registries and future economic scenarios, enabling more accurate mid- to long-range forecasting.
“One of the project’s key challenges is to combine complex ecological datasets with economic and societal models in a way that enables reliable predictions of environmental change and its impacts on people,” added Professor Jarno Vanhatalo, a further researcher.
This year, the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation awarded grants to a total of five research projects at the University of Helsinki. Read more here.
