TESSA is a PDF-based tool that evaluates the benefits of ecosystem services and natural capital for an individual site, as opposed to other tools that are more applicable at scale. It also allows users to compare estimates of potential land-use changes to reveal the consequences to people and nature and help…
This web-based application estimates the potential for carbon emissions, carbon storage, and carbon sequestration for design alternatives based on land use and at various scales. It can be used in the early stages of a project at various scales to compare design options, test alternate land uses, structural systems…
This web-based application allows registered users to estimate the carbon footprint and time to carbon neutral for landscape projects based on site design and management. It may be used for projects in the design phase or already completed projects. The only required inputs are project type, site boundaries, and…
This tool estimates carbon footprint and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for farms and ranches. Users input current farm or ranch management practices, and the tool uses information on climate and soil conditions from USDA databases to run a series of models for potential sources of GHG emissions and climate change…
iNaturalist is a worldwide online network of biodiversity information that provides access to millions of citizen science observations of plant and animal biodiversity. It functions as a crowdsourced species identification system and organism recurrence recording tool to help understand the presence and prevalence of…
This toolkit of metrics for observation and survey tools can be used to evaluate diversity and social mixing in public spaces like plazas, parks, squares, and streets. The tools focus on public life metrics especially related to the social use of space including: intercept surveys to collect data on individuals…
This open-source tool allows users to conduct a Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) measuring a site’s habitat condition or a specified natural plant community’s condition on a site. A user specifies a region within the United States and enters basic information about a specific site such as date, location, and weather…
This web-based tool estimates and compares greenhouse gas (GHG) and energy use reductions for different waste management practices in a baseline and an alternate scenario. It is intended to support voluntary GHG measurement and reporting initiatives. The tool works for common household and construction materials…
InVEST is a suite of software models used to map and value the goods and services from nature that sustain and fulfill human life. It aims to provide a consistent methodology for measuring and comparing the value of multiple ecosystem services underdifferent ecological conditions. The toolset currently includes sixteen…
This desktop application estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site anywhere in the U.S. The calculator uses EPA’s SWMM model and accesses several national databases that provide local topography, soil, historic rainfall, and evaporation information. It is most appropriate for…
