Nature restoration can support biodiversity, climate resilience, ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Understanding its full benefits, costs and wider societal implications is essential for informed decisions about where, how and when to restore nature.
Nature restoration is an important part of addressing biodiversity loss and wider environmental pressures across Europe. Restoring ecosystems can improve habitats, strengthen ecological functions and generate benefits that extend into people's lives, local economies and the resilience of landscapes.
Yet these benefits are not always easy to identify, measure or compare. Some can be quantified using established indicators, while others—such as changes in wellbeing, cultural values or the distribution of benefits among different groups—are more difficult to capture. Restoration can also involve financial and opportunity costs, including changes in how land is used and managed.
This creates a challenge for those planning, assessing and implementing restoration: how can decisions account for the full range of ecological, economic and societal impacts, rather than focusing on only a subset of outcomes?
Making the wider benefits and costs visible
The effects of restoration depend on the ecosystem being restored, the measures selected and the local context. An intervention may generate several benefits simultaneously, while also creating costs or constraints for particular land users or communities. The balance of these effects can differ across locations and over time.
Understanding these outcomes requires evidence that connects ecological changes with their economic and societal implications. It also requires attention to who benefits, who bears costs and how these effects are distributed.
Without this broader perspective, decision-makers may find it difficult to compare restoration options, identify potential synergies or anticipate where competing interests could arise. A more comprehensive assessment can help clarify the consequences of different choices and make the evidence supporting restoration decisions more transparent.
How NatuRISE will contribute
NatuRISE — Nature Restoration Impact Assessment for Socio-Economic and Ecological Benefits — is a four-year Horizon Europe project working to strengthen the evidence available for nature restoration decisions across Europe.
The project will develop and connect data, indicators, modelling approaches and assessment methods to improve understanding of restoration benefits, costs and wider impacts. It will examine ecological, land-use and socio-economic dimensions, bringing these perspectives together to support integrated assessments.
Four case studies will provide real-world settings in which to test and refine the project's approaches. Stakeholders, including policymakers, practitioners and land and forest managers, will contribute their knowledge and experience through activities such as workshops, interviews, co-creation and tool testing.
This work will inform decision-support tools intended to help users compare restoration options, explore their implications and understand potential trade-offs and synergies.
Supporting better-informed restoration decisions
NatuRISE does not implement restoration measures directly. Its contribution is to strengthen the evidence and analytical support available to those responsible for restoration policy, planning and implementation.
By making a broader range of impacts visible and bringing ecological, economic and societal perspectives together, the project aims to help decision-makers assess restoration options more comprehensively. This can support decisions that take account of both environmental objectives and the people and places affected by restoration.
Understanding the full picture is an important step towards restoration decisions that are better informed, more effective and more equitable.