We have recently completed a natural capital accounting pilot with Melbourne Water in support of their Healthy Waterways Strategy (HWS). Our key goal with this project was to demonstrate the potential for natural capital concepts, analysis and data to support the Melbourne Water business in managing their dependencies and impacts on nature.
While working on the Natural Capital for Waterways Pilot, we applied the United Nations’ System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) framework to waterways across four Melbourne catchments.
There were three phases of the project, in which we developed a number of outputs, including:
- a bridging framework between the HWS and the SEEA EA
- an ecosystem services materiality assessment
- several technical reports covering results, methods and data for ecosystem extent, ecosystem condition, over ten ecosystem services in physical and monetary terms, and natural capital investments
- a synthesis report.
This project found that there are many uses for natural capital accounting data across the Melbourne Water business including assessing the economic and social benefits of restoring and protecting Melbourne’s freshwater ecosystems. Natural capital accounting is a continual process, and a longer-term strategy for investing in the information base to support Melbourne Water across the potential applications, is necessary.