The multi-service, modular design of InVEST provides an effective tool for balancing the environmental and economic goals of these diverse entities. Governments, non-profits, international lending institutions, and corporations all manage natural resources for multiple uses and inevitably must evaluate tradeoffs among them. Despite its importance, this natural capital is poorly understood, scarcely monitored, and, in many cases, undergoing rapid degradation and depletion. If properly managed, ecosystems yield a flow of services that are vital to humanity, including the production of goods (e.g., food), life-support processes (e.g., water purification), and life-fulfilling conditions (e.g., beauty, opportunities for recreation), and the conservation of options (e.g., genetic diversity for future use). InVEST® is a suite of free, open-source software models used to map and value the goods and services from nature that sustain and fulfill human life.
