GundXChange: An Expert-Informed Global Restoration Priority Map

Brian Robinson
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, McGill University
April 18, 2025 from 12-1 p.m.
Farrell Hall, room 006

Natural climate solutions (NCS) are a bright spot in the fight against global climate change, attracting billions in funding and global international commitments for implementation. NCS can also generate biodiversity and human well-being co-benefits or trade-offs (“co-impacts”). I first introduce our recent efforts to review the massive evidence base, using machine learning methods, to create a global evidence map on NCS co-impacts. We then sent authors from this global evidence database a questionnaire to elicit expert preferences on restoration-focused NCS. We conducted a discrete choice experiment (n=2,742) within the questionnaire to ask NCS experts’ opinions on which ecosystem restoration activities, such as restoring forests or wetlands, they would choose in specific social context (continent, income, and level of development) and percent of overall budget to allocate to the proposed restoration activity. With the results we predict preferences for the spatial allocation of restoration activities (in places where restoration is feasible) to develop an expert-informed global restoration priority map. 

Dr. Brian E. Robinson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research evaluates how landscapes and ecosystems impact communities and local economies. He is currently leading projects to understand the realities of natural climate solutions and connecting ecosystem service models to national ecosystem accounting (i.e., SEEA). In addition to work in Canada, he has led interdisciplinary and international research projects Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya, Mozambique, and India, with extensive field work in multiple provinces of China. He leads multiple interdisciplinary collaborative efforts, including as the interim Director of Canada’s ResNet consortium and directing McGill’s Sustainability Science & Society degree program. He has served as an advisor for organizations including the FAO, USAID, The Nature Conservancy, Rights + Resources Initiative, the Global Land Alliance, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, master’s degrees from MIT, and an BS from Georgia Tech. When not on campus, he’s likely looking for the best running trails within a few hours of Montreal.