Process for Assessing Social Benefits of Ecological Restoration

The RBI approach is an easy-to-use process for assessing restoration sites using non-monetary benefit indicators. It uses readily-available data to estimate and quantify benefits to people around an ecological restoration site. Whether you are a federal, state, or local manager, or a member of an interest group or funding organization, this simple yet powerful site analysis will allow you and your stakeholders to systematically and equitably incorporate social benefits in restoration decisions.

Application 

The RBI approach can be used to do the following:

• Prioritize restoration sites and projects
• Screen projects that may require further evaluation
• Justify funding requests
• Assess who may benefit the most from a project
• Evaluate tradeoffs
• Inform people about the benefits of restoration
• Evaluate what a project has accomplished
• Inform further planning
• Inform a structured decision making process or monetary evaluation

Downloads

• RBI Approach Tool, Manual, and Forms. This page provides the interactive tool with associated manual, as well as an alternative to the interactive tool, all in one location. Each component can also be accessed individually below:
  • RBI Approach Checklist Tool (interactive Excel® spreadsheet). This tool accompanies the guidebook and provides a way to record information and compare sites using the RBI approach. The spreadsheet-based tool includes prompts to guide you through the assessment process, and automatically summarizes entries. (Checklist Tool Quick Start Manual)
  • RBI Approach Fillable Checklist Forms (pdf). This alternative to the interactive Checklist Tool is a fillable, formatted PDF that will work on any operating system. The PDF does not have all the functionality of the spreadsheet and will only allow for the comparison of two sites at a time.
• RBI Approach Guidebook. The guidebook presents the RBI approach using an example application to wetland restoration. In this guide, each step of the RBI approach is introduced by an overview section that summarizes the step and explains how to apply it. Following the full walkthrough of each step, you will find “Step in Action” pages that demonstrate how the step is applied in a real-world scenario, using an example application to freshwater wetland restoration in the Woonasquatucket River Watershed in Rhode Island, USA.
• RBI Approach Fact Sheet. This one-page document briefly describes the RBI approach and how it might be used.

Related Resources

• Benefit Indicators for Flood Regulation Services of Wetlands: A Modeling Approach. This report describes a modeling process, following the RBI approach, used to develop indicators to assess increases in flood protection benefits from wetlands restoration.
• Barriers, Opportunities, and Strategies for Urban Ecosystem Restoration: Lessons Learned from Restoration Managers in Rhode Island, U.S.A. This report presents barriers, opportunities, and strategies for restoration projects and synthesizes lessons learned by restoration managers working in primarily urban settings.
• Manager Perspectives on Communication and Public Engagement in Ecological Restoration Project Success. This article focuses on the restoration community in Rhode Island to draw connections among communication, community involvement, and ecological restoration project success. Offering real-world examples drawn from interviews with 27 local, state, federal, and nonprofit restoration managers, it synthesizes the mechanisms that managers found effective.