Building the evidence base for better nature restoration decisions

NatuRISE is developing data, indicators and assessment methods to help reveal the wider ecological, economic and societal impacts of nature restoration — supporting better-informed decisions about where and how restoration can deliver benefits.

Nature restoration can support biodiversity, ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Yet understanding its full implications requires more than identifying ecological improvements alone. Restoration can also involve financial and other costs, effects on land use and livelihoods, and benefits and burdens that are distributed differently across places and groups.

For policymakers, land and forest managers, conservation practitioners and other stakeholders, the challenge is to understand these impacts together and use that evidence when comparing restoration options.

Building a broader evidence base

NatuRISE – Nature Restoration Impact Assessment for Socio-Economic and Ecological Benefits – is working to strengthen the evidence needed to assess these wider impacts. Its approach begins with three connected activities.

Expanding knowledge of restoration impacts

NatuRISE will collect and synthesise evidence on the socio-economic effects of nature restoration, including ecosystem services and human wellbeing. This can help clarify the range of benefits restoration may generate and identify impacts that are difficult to capture through conventional economic measures.

Developing data and indicators

Datasets and indicators will help describe and assess restoration benefits, costs and their distribution across places and groups. A stronger evidence base can support more consistent assessments and help reveal where impacts differ between contexts or stakeholders.

Strengthening assessment methods

The project will develop and improve approaches for identifying, measuring and valuing restoration impacts, including effects that are not directly reflected in market prices. This matters because many ecological and societal benefits cannot be understood through financial costs and revenues alone.

Why this matters for restoration decisions

A broader evidence base can help decision-makers ask more informed questions: Which benefits might different restoration options deliver? What costs or trade-offs could arise? Who may benefit, and who may bear costs? How might impacts differ between locations?

These questions are relevant to restoration planning and policy, as well as to practitioners and land managers considering options in specific landscapes. They also help identify where further evidence is needed and where benefits, costs or distributional effects require closer assessment.

NatuRISE will connect this evidence with ecological, land-use and socio-economic modelling, integrated assessments and four case studies. The project will also work with stakeholders to develop decision-support that helps users compare restoration options and understand their wider implications.

The aim is to make restoration impacts more visible and the evidence more useful to those shaping restoration policy, planning and implementation.

From evidence to better-informed decisions

Building the evidence base is the first step in NatuRISE's wider approach: connecting data and indicators with modelling, integrated assessment and stakeholder-informed decision support. Over the project, this work will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of restoration benefits, costs, trade-offs and distributional effects across Europe.

NatuRISE does not directly implement restoration measures. Its contribution is to strengthen the knowledge and assessment tools available to those who plan, evaluate and implement them.

Read more about the NatuRISE approach: Discover how the project connects evidence, modelling, integrated assessment and decision support to understand the wider impacts of nature restoration.