HAMILTON—Money might not grow on trees, but according to a new report, so-called natural assets are saving local governments a lot of it. More specifically: the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative found the 91 square-kilometre Grindstone Creek watershed provides approximately $2 billion in stormwater management, and about $34 million annually in other benefits including recreation, erosion control, and carbon sequestration.
“What that means is that if we were to hypothetically remove all of the natural assets in the Grindstone Creek watershed, we would need to spend $2 billion just to build the initial infrastructure to manage the stormwater,” says Kim Barrett, associate director of science and partnerships at Conservation Halton. The Halton conservation authority, Burlington-based Royal Botanical Gardens, and cities of Hamilton and Burlington partnered with the MNAI in this project.
A map showing the Grindstone Creek watershed and the types of natural assets within it. (Municipal Natural Assets Initiative)
The watershed sits between Hamilton and Toronto, and partially within the boundaries of Hamilton, Burlington, and the Regional Municipality of Halton. The report states that Grindstone Creek supplies 14 per cent of the natural water in Hamilton Harbour and Burlington Bay at the site of the Royal Botanical Gardens. The watershed exists within the Carolinian life zone, an ecosystem with more flora and fauna species than any other in Canada.
Michelle Molnar, the MNAI’s technical director and project lead, says natural assets (which include wetlands, forests, and grasslands) are “any natural resources or ecosystem that can be relied upon for service delivery. That could be managing stormwater, cleaning your air, providing recreational opportunities.”
The Grindstone Marsh at the southern tip of the Grindstone Creek Watershed is a popular birding spot. (Justin Chandler)
Molnar says there are three reasons local governments may want to value them: the significant cost of replacing aging engineered infrastructure, the risk climate change poses to that infrastructure, and the high rate of biodiversity loss.
“Starting to put a value on nature doesn’t mean that it’s a full comprehensive value, but at least it can start to be factored into decision making. Right now, it’s often given an implied value of zero, other than as something nice to look at.”
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Assigning a dollar value to natural assets “helps us build a business case for investing in them and maintaining them over the long term," Barret says.
“The analogy I like to give is that you wouldn’t build a stormwater management pond without setting aside funds to maintain it. And in a similar way, we can’t expect natural assets to continue providing these services if we’re not regularly assessing them and repairing their condition where that’s warranted,” Barret says. “I think we take natural assets very much for granted.”
She adds this method of valuation may also help more people care about nature. “I’ve been an ecologist for a long time, and I’ve come to the realization that not everyone is going to care about species at risk. That’s just the way it is. But everybody cares about having clean air to breathe. Everybody cares about not getting flooded. If we can put nature preservation into terms that people care about, it’s another way of getting people into the tent — on board and understanding those values of nature preservation.”
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The report states the roughly $2-billion value of stormwater management in the watershed breaks down to approximately $65 per square metre for forests; $200 per square metre for swamps; $203 per square metre for marshes; and $324 per square metre for open water, “in terms of capital costs of equivalent engineered infrastructure assets to provide that same service.”
Molnar says researchers used the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s stormwater management model to assess how water moves through natural assets. Then, they calculated what it would cost to match those results with engineered infrastructure.
To evaluate the other services, Molnar says the team used existing research in Ontario to devise a service value per hectare for different types of assets. Researchers considered assets’ values to Indigenous communities and Ontarians’ mental health qualitatively and did not assign them dollar values.
A table showing the value of natural assets within the watershed for storm water management. (Municipal Natural Assets Initiative)
The MNAI report does not include operating costs such as maintenance and monitoring. Molnar says this area bears further study as it proved too big to encompass in the project. However, she adds, natural assets tend to be less costly to operate than engineered ones, and usually appreciate in value (trees get bigger and store more carbon, for example) whereas human-made infrastructure usually depreciates.
“Natural assets in Grindstone Creek are extremely valuable in addressing local flood risk and of course that’s a serious natural hazard concern across the province, potentially with very destructive and very expensive effects,” Barrett says. “As climate change increases the frequency and intensity and severity of our storms, the value of having that resilient natural infrastructure is going to become even more critical.”
A table showing the breakdown of service values beyond storm water management. (Municipal Natural Assets Initiative)
Molnar says this report showcases the importance of organizations working togethering and collaborating at a watershed level. Recommendations in the report include reviewing policies to protect natural assets and making a strategy to manage the watershed.
The report comes out alongside the COP15 climate conference and amidst heated debate around changes to Ontario’s conservation authorities, Greenbelt and urban boundaries. “You do see these competing priorities,” Molnar says. “This really brings in a whole category of evidence to help with that decision making.”
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TVO Today asked Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks to comment on the report’s findings. TVO also asked whether the ministry considers the financial value of natural assets when making decisions that affect them, or whether it would consider adopting such a practice.
A spokesperson emailed TVO a statement which reads in part: “Ontario’s protected natural areas contribute significantly to maintaining the environmental and economic health of the province. The Environmental Assessment Act has a broad definition of environment and requires proponents of projects to take into consideration impacts of a project on the natural environment, and the social, economic and cultural conditions that influence human life or a community. The purpose of the Act is to improve conditions in Ontario by protecting, conserving and managing wisely our environment. While dollar values are not normally attributed to natural resources in an environmental assessment, consideration is given to a project’s potential impact on the broad environment.”
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Barrett says that “it’s more than just protecting nature for the sake of nature.”
“As a human species, we’re dependent on nature, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it fully or not. I hope [this work] will help to make that connection between the condition of the environment and the condition of the humans that live in and around our natural spaces.”
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