Economic Evaluation Framework & Tool

Origin of the Tool

The City of Winter Haven, a fast-growing urban area in central Florida, is a community that faces multi-dimensional tradeoffs regarding economic development and the availability of water for human and natural systems. Past decisions to accommodate population growth have typically relied on constructed “gray infrastructure” solutions that serve a single purpose – for example, using engineered systems to supply potable water to people and to drain stormwater. These systems, and related actions to accommodate development such as draining wetlands and the use of impervious materials, have changed the urban water cycle, resulting in impacts to virtually all aspects of the community and watershed, including the environment (especially lakes and wetlands), water utilities, and quality of life. These additional impacts are often not considered when making decisions about stormwater management or water supply – which may lead to suboptimal decisions.

As part of the City’s One Water planning process, the City contracted with Black and Veatch and RAND Corporation to develop an economic framework that could be used to estimate the benefits and costs of multi-benefit solutions like Nature-Based Solutions.

Nature-Based Solutions

Nature-based solutions (NBS), also known as green infrastructure, are alternatives to single-purpose solutions that generally attempt to use or mimic natural processes in order to manage (e.g., infiltrate, store, or transport/deliver) water. Given the nature of these options, NBS can enhance other aspects of community development as well through, e.g., enhanced recreational opportunities, environmental and habitat quality, and amenity benefits. As such, even if NBS are more expensive than traditional gray infrastructure, they may be preferred due to the enhanced value that they tend to provide.

About the Tool

The Economic Evaluation Tool (the Tool) was developed to facilitate the project- or portfolio-level calculations of benefits and costs for green infrastructure/NBS solutions as part of the One Water planning process for the City of Winter Haven, FL. As such, the tool is populated with information particularly relevant to green infrastructure/NBS solutions in Florida and the Southeast more generally, but users are free to use any relevant physical and monetary information in their calculations. Anticipated users of the tool are local governmental entities or consultants interested in making the economic case for a specific green infrastructure/NBS solution initiative or project.

The tool itself is a self-contained, web-based tool that allows users to: a) value benefits using ecosystem flows, natural capital stocks, or both; b) enter capital, operation and maintenance costs; c) display and save the results; and d) compare the results between different scenarios.

Users input information about expected biophysical changes in ecosystem service flows (e.g., flood protection services, water supply, recreational services) and/or natural capital stocks (e.g., acres of forests and wetlands), as well as the preferred valuation method (often involving per-unit values or other parameters specific to the method). Users have the choice of manually and interactively entering data for a representative year, or using a predicted time-series of benefits and costs to generate the net present value of benefits and costs over a specified time horizon. Although the Tool is designed around the Winter Haven One Water framework, it is flexible enough to incorporate any other benefit or cost estimation method of interest by the user.

Request Access to the Nature-Based Solutions Benefit Cost Tool

The City of Winter Haven, the Florida One Water Commission, and RAND Corporation have partnered to make the Nature-Based Solutions Benefit Cost Tool available to all municipalities. To gain access, please email winterhavenecontool@rand.org with the subject line Winter Haven Economic Evaluation Tool access request and include the following in the body of the email: “Please invite me for access to Winter Haven’s economic evaluation tool on shinyapps.io.” (Click the link below to automatically draft this email.)

Request tool access.

Resources

Tool User Guide – Download

Sapphire Necklace Benefit Cost PowerPoint Presentation – Download

Tool Framework – Download