Land Value in the Sea

Christoph Nolte, a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of earth and environment, has spent the majority of his career studying how effectively conservation efforts protect the environment from our changing climate. Through research, he’s asking key questions about where concerted conservation efforts take place and what difference they make for our world at large.

To inform future decisions about conservation policy, Nolte has now created the first high-resolution map of land value in the United States—a tool he says will improve our estimation of environmental conservation costs, inform policy recommendations, and help other researchers conduct their own studies on rebuilding and protecting what’s left of natural resources and the biodiversity within our ecosystems. The Brink caught up with him to learn more about the map and its related findings, which were published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Articles:

• PNAS: High-resolution land value maps reveal underestimation of conservation costs in the United States
• The Brink: Map of US Land Value Reveals Interplay of Climate Change, Conservation Efforts, Real Estate, and Environmental Values