Natural Capital Region

Plan, prioritise and report most cost-effective investment in natural capital improvement actions.

Natural Capital Region is a web-based application providing guidance on the most cost-effective investment actions required, for a range of environmental indicators. The aim is to streamline investment programs, at basin and sub-catchment scales. Natural Capital Region has been developed using the learnings from earlier tools developed in the South-East Queensland and Reef landscapes and is being applied in areas across Australia.

Natural Capital Region uses curated libraries of on-ground investment 'actions', each with a cost and impact. Positive and negative actions relate to broadacre agricultural practice, revegetation (wetland, riparian, terrestrial), point source improvements, preservation of high value assets, streambank and gully management, land clearing and land maintenance practices. New projects can create local libraries or build on existing libraries developed for: South East Queensland (60 actions); Queensland Reef Water Quality Management Program (80 actions); and the Southern Queensland landscapes action libraries (30 actions).

The modelling platform uses a ‘marginal cost abatement curve’ approach to determine the cost effectiveness of on-ground management actions associated with seven indicator groups. These are Water quality, Biodiversity, Land resilience, First Nations, Social, Economic, and Climate change to determine a portfolio of prioritised on-ground investment actions. All values are equal, and the user weights the relative importance of each. It considers confidence in the prediction of outcomes and includes variable response timeframes for each outcome (i.e. immediate vs longer-term).

Natural Capital Region runs a scenario based on any number of user selected indicators (individually or in any combination) to calculate a suite of on-ground actions that best meet the user-defined impact required. The calculation is based on the costs of each action selected and the relevant area they are applied to (cost effectiveness). The user can also generate a prioritised list of actions to meet a fixed budget allocation. Further, the user can generate a prioritised list of actions to meet user defined improvement targets across all indicators. 

Each action has a quantified impact i.e. yield, load, efficacy, area of change. Some examples include stream bank erosion (yield), area change of riverine wetland, efficacy of carbon sequestration.

The data required to develop a library of actions is managed by Truii and includes:

• Local water quality improvement data curated based on relevant studies. For example in Queensland, for the Sugarcane, Grain and Banana industries, action effectiveness is derived from modelling simulations conducted by the Paddock to Reef paddock modelling program.
• For Geographe Bay in in Western Australia, water quality improvement and cost effectiveness data was supplied by WA government.
• Gully related water quality improvement effectiveness from the Gully and Stream Bank Toolbox (Gully Toolbox)
• The cost of actions derived from published literature and expert input.

• A computational approach that has been built for non-modellers.
• Requires experience with Natural Resource Management planning, land uses and management practices, and the associated spatial data layers. The effectiveness of management practice changes associated with each land use is required, which may form part of an existing action library hosted by Truii.

Natural Capital Region hosted on the Truii website. GIS software, spatial datasets, expert and stakeholder information and engagement.

An interactive output is generated for each scenario displayed within the program’s web interface. These outputs include a list of prioritised actions (and associated location, cost, treated area), a cumulative cost breakdown graphic, improvement from baseline over time generated by each indicator graphic, and a clickable catchment map highlighting benefits in any one sub-catchment. This is an interactive planning tool that can be updated in real-time to explore alternate scenarios by adjusting total program value, actions, adoption likelihood and priority sub-catchments.

• On-ground investment prioritisation.
• Resource and conservation planning.
• Input to other planning processes, interfaces and investment programs.

For project brokers, planners and large-scale Natural Resource Management investors; local/regional, State and Federal Governments, natural resource management groups.

• On-ground action libraries available, curated and maintained by Truii.
• User weights relative importance of a broad range of environmental, social, economic and cultural indicators.
• Provides confidence ratings on action effectiveness and costs and considers adoption likelihood of actions.
• Both positive and negative actions are considered (i.e. preservation, land clearing).
• Temporal response time of actions is considered.
• Data versioning control allows the application to be updated with new data, whilst maintaining historical scenarios.
• Scenarios can be run and assessed in real time.

• Truii proprietary software: applicable access fee to cover cost of development, hosting and support.
• The range of indicators is fixed.
• Initially steep learning curve for non-modellers to use. As part of the access fee, Truii supports and trains new users.

Southern Queensland Landscapes

This page should be cited as:

Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, Queensland (2024) Natural Capital Region, WetlandInfo website, accessed 30 August 2024. Available at: https://wetlandinfo.des.qld.gov.au/wetlands/resources/tools/assessment-search-tool/natural-capital-region/