Natural Capital Singapore

As a global leader in green urban development, Singapore has recognised that the quality of the natural environment is important to economic performance and liveability. However, significant challenges exist in incorporating the environment into holistic, national-scale planning. While the economic benefits of urban development are simple to calculate, we lack comparable information for environmental assets (termed "natural capital"). Methods to assess natural capital at a national level have been developed for several temperate nations, but these are not readily applicable to tropical nations such as Singapore, where climatic conditions, ecosystems and national priorities are different.

The objectives of this three-year project are to assess the current status and health of Singapore’s major ecosystems, and quantify their economic and societal value. This analysis will provide the first national-scale assessment of Singapore's natural capital, and the first assessment for a tropical, heavily urbanised country. The project will also predict potential future changes in natural capital, and identify trade-offs and synergies with future urban development. The assessment of future changes will be supported by the development of an interactive decision-support tool that will provide information on natural capital to decision-makers.

Natural Capital Singapore started on the 1st January 2018 and was officially launched in August 2018. It is an Intra-CREATE collaborative research project, funded by the National Research Foundation. The projected is hosted by the Singapore-ETH Centre, which is established by ETH Zurich - the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. The team is led by Principal Investigators from the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and ETH Zurich. Key partners in government are the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology at the National Parks Board.