Illustrative: a hexagonal population grid where a wave rises, peaks and recovers from seeded outbreaks
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Finance and Economics · Department of Financial Markets and Investment
Nature-related financial risk and the capital that flows to nature
Nature and biodiversity finance
Firms depend on pollination, water, soils and stable coasts, and when those services decline the loss reaches lenders, investors and insurers.
- Courses
- In preparation
- Levels
- In development
- Labs
- In development
- Nature-related dependencies and impacts of portfolios
- Nature-related financial risk transmission
- TNFD recommendations and the LEAP approach
- Supervisory work on nature-related risk
- Biodiversity metrics for finance
- Debt-for-nature swaps and conservation finance
- Biodiversity credits and their integrity
- Payment for ecosystem services
- Target 19 of the Global Biodiversity Framework
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow nature and biodiversity finance on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Finance and EconomicsAny placeTwin builder
- Terrain 0 to 66 m
- 30 power plants, 11,875 MW
- 7 refineries and chemical works
- 2 port land
- 29 named works
- 154 named industrial sites
- Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS): read live when the 3D twin opens
- Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010: read live when the 3D twin opens
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Places4
Layers5
iCredits
- Terrain Surface height in whole metres on a grid of about 320 by 370 metres, read from one overview of the 30 m product at build time; the plain lies between sea level and about 66 m. Produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. read 2026-10-17. Estimate: A digital surface model: trees and roofs are in the heights. Relief exaggeration is printed on the stage.
- Power plants The 30 plants inside the box with nameplate capacity in MW and primary fuel, from the 2021 release, drawn as columns by capacity: the portfolio's assets. Power plants: Global Power Plant Database v1.3.0 (2021), World Resources Institute and partners, CC BY 4.0. release 1.3.0, 2021-06-02. Estimate: A 2021 snapshot, never current operating status; capacity is nameplate.
- Refineries, terminals and industrial sites Named refineries, chemical works, terminals, port land and industrial sites, each as one point with its tags as mapped. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-05-31. Estimate: Points as mapped; no asset value, ownership or operating status is implied.
- Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS) Open and partial surface water on the date shown, draped on the terrain around the assets. OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent from HLS, NASA JPL OPERA (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data; USGS Landsat), via NASA GIBS, with the product date. Live: this page requests gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it. We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Estimate: A classification from optical imagery; clouds leave gaps; never a flood warning, a return-period hazard or a risk rating.
- Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010 Built-up extent in 2010 from Landsat as the exposure footprint around the assets. CIESIN, Columbia University, and NASA SEDAC: Global Human Built-up And Settlement Extent (HBASE) 2010. Live: this page requests gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it. We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Estimate: A 2010 classification; the year is printed.
Why this place: One box of about 77 by 66 kilometres holds the petrochemical complex of the Houston Ship Channel, Galveston Bay's refineries and terminals, and a city whose insured losses from Hurricane Harvey (2017) and the February 2021 freeze are the standard cases for catastrophe accumulation, protection gaps and the pricing of flood and power-outage risk. Data quality: the Global Power Plant Database lists the region's 30 plants with capacity and fuel, OpenStreetMap maps 192 refineries, terminals, works and industrial sites, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 covers the low relief, and OPERA surface-water detection and HBASE built-up extent load live from NASA GIBS. It connects to the Insurance, reinsurance and protection gaps, Disaster risk finance, Actuarial science, Climate and nature financial risk, Market, liquidity and treasury risk and Public finance and sovereign debt disciplines of the atlas.
Flat plan of the same data: relief as contours from the inline grid, the plants by capacity, the industrial points by kind and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
Habitat condition in Southern Africa
Vegetation, land cover, fires and ocean productivity and warmth from NASA satellites, over Southern Africa.
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Layers 2
Habitat condition
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Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Habitat condition, framed on Southern Africa.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group; distributed by the NASA Ocean Biology DAAC (OB.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- Optional layers (5 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
- Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
- Gross primary production, 8-day total: MODIS Aqua GPP (MYD17), NASA LP DAAC · 30 Sep 2026
- Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Ocean chlorophyll-a concentration: MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA OB.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies
The field and its scope
For financial risk and sustainability staff, conservation finance practitioners and supervisors who need to understand how dependence on ecosystems becomes financial risk and how capital reaches nature.
Quantities and units
Methods and their limits
Each method is listed with what it assumes and where it fails.
What the field debates
Bodies that set practice, and the data they publish
Bodies and standards are named so learners can find and apply their published work; the Academy teaches their use and links to the publisher, and no affiliation is implied.
From a declining ecosystem service to a credit loss: nature dependence in a loan book
Borrowers in sectors that depend on ecosystem services lose revenue when those services decline; lower revenue raises their probability of default; the lender locates the dependence, sizes the loss and decides how to respond.
Sources: Dasgupta, The economics of biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review (2021); Kedward, Ryan-Collins and Chenet, Biodiversity loss and climate change interactions: financial stability implications for central banks and financial supervisors (2023); Costanza and others, Changes in the global value of ecosystem services (2014).
How nature and biodiversity finance connects the sectors
Select corners to build a signature, then hover a line to read what each sector gives and receives.
Signature
Biodiversity and its partners
Biodiversity gives pollination and soils to food (0.6), watershed regulation to water (0.5) and zoonotic spillover and medicines to health (0.4).
W · E · I · F · H · B
- Sectors
- 4 of 6
- Relations
- 6 of 15
- Coupling
- 0.46 share of total
Strongest relations in play
- Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
- Water → Food · irrigation0.8
- Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
- Food → Health · nutrition0.7
At a glance, hub and courses
Nature and biodiversity finance at a glance
risksacademy.comfinance-economicsdiscipline
- Open, 0
- In preparation, 0
- Subtopics, 9
Research and tools
Research and preprints as they are published, by discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The hub lists the newest research and preprints for Nature and biodiversity finance, each with its source and date. Open the research hub
Courses in this discipline
Courses for this discipline are in development; until they open, study it through the connected courses and open lessons below.
The course catalogue lists every open course of the Academy.
How Nature and biodiversity finance is taught, as a process you can run
Press Play to run this process from this page's own data.
Practice, learning and connections
How technology helps and what risk it brings
Achievements in this discipline
Course achievements
One for each course with this as its primary discipline, earned when you pass the course's assessed activities.
Department: Financial Markets and Investment
Earn two discipline achievements in the Department of Financial Markets and Investment. In development.
An achievement is a record of the learning completed and assessed here. How recognition works.
Where the subject is practised
A field platform page on this subject is in development.
The two Foundry systems where it is practised
- FoundryNXS-DSS systemNature transition pathways are scenario setsScenarios room
- NXS-GRX systemEcosystem dependence and impact data are canonical risk dataData room
Foundry system pages describe what each system and its rooms are designed to do; the courses teach the methods these systems apply.
Across the ecosystem
Take part in Finance and Economics
Start from who you are.
Core references and where to begin
Start with Dasgupta, then Kedward, then Costanza.
Questions, answers and key terms
Is study here free?
What does completing a course give me?
Where do the data and the places come from?
How do I take part beyond the courses in nature and biodiversity finance?
Key terms
Nature-related financial risk
Risk to firms and financial institutions from their dependence and impact on nature, through physical and transition channels.
LEAP approach
The TNFD process to locate, evaluate, assess and prepare for nature-related issues.
Debt-for-nature swap
A restructuring of sovereign debt in which savings are committed to conservation.
Biodiversity credit
A tradable unit representing a measured positive biodiversity outcome, whose integrity rules are still developing.
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Around Nature and biodiversity finance
Prepare with a related course
Open courses in connected disciplines teach the methods this discipline will build on.