CostingNature - Mapping the services provided by the world's protected areas

CostingNature is a system to value the services provided to humanity by protected areas.  Here we quantify the proportion of water in the world’s rivers that originates from protected areas and the number of people drinking water from protected areas. 

Water from protected areas is often purer and better regulated than water that comes from agricultural land or urban surfaces.  Water is one of the many ‘environmental services’ provided by nature to humankind and understanding the importance of these helps focus resources of the protection of the ecosystems that provide those services.


CostingNature has been develop by Mark Mulligan, King's College London in collaboration with UNEP-WCMC.



Protected areas extracted from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) in 2007 supplied by UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).The WDPA is a joint product of UNEP and the IUCN, prepared by UNEP-WCMC and the IUCN WCPA working with Governments, the Secretariats of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and collaborating NGOs. For further information email: protectedareas@unep-wcmc.org.