If you live in Northern California today, health researchers may be watching your house from above. This unprecedented project is tracking the impact of urban forestry on health expenses by correlating trees’ locations with medical data from Kaiser Permanente. The researchers’ goal is to advocate on Capitol Hill for nationwide investment in urban forestry to prune medical costs. They also plan to develop an online cost savings estimation tool that communities throughout the United States can use.

The 2016 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum, hosted by Aspen Institute and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, showed the role of impact investing in bridging the financing gap in the water sector. The resulting report, “Conservation Finance & Impact Investing for U.S. Water,” offers case studies and analyses of new tools and models that are taking root in the industry. This Q&A with Martin Doyle, one of the authors of the report, dives into the realities of funding water infrastructure in the current political and economic environment.

There is a high level of uncertainty about federal funding for land conservation over the next four years. The recently passed 2017 budget has kept many conservation-related programs and funds intact, but 2018 may be a different story. The administration’s proposed budget calls for broad cuts to conservation funding, but Congress makes the final decision on appropriations.

How can the growing community of practice around natural capital approaches continue to engage, learn and adapt? The 2017 Natural Capital Symposium discussed this question at Stanford University on Mar. 20-23. A key session was titled “Securing Freshwater through Innovative Public and Private Partnerships.” This session showed examples of innovations that often required partnerships between public and/or private institutions, development banks, and civil society.

Consider this: The $400 billion in private environmental finance needed annually, according to Credit Suisse and McKinsey & Company, is eight times even the more generous current estimates of conservation finance. Practitioners and experts gathered last month at the New York City office of Credit Suisse to explore how to bridge that gap and meet the conservation objectives of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Conservation Finance Network cohosted the event. Here are some key insights from the conversation.

Dramatic increases in investment in conservation over the last decade are the focus of a new report authored by Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace, “State of Private Investment in Conservation 2016.” The report sheds light on the many dimensions that drove growth between 2004 and 2015.

In September, Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed AB 2480 into law. This bill established that “source watersheds are recognized and defined as integral components of California’s water infrastructure.” The conservation think tank Pacific Forest Trust created the bill together with its author, Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).

REDD+ forest conservation funding for developing nations has dropped precipitously over the last two years, according to a report from Overseas Development Institute and Heinrich Boll Stiftung, “10 Things to Know about Climate Finance in 2016.” But according to Mario Boccucci, head of the UN-REDD Programme Secretariat, “The current level of public-sector donor pledging to forest systems and REDD+ is unprecedented. Germany, United Kingdom, and Norway have pledged $5 billion USD for the period 2016 through 2020.” He said REDD+ is taking off now after a challenging few years of development.

District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) has created an innovative municipal bond that covers the downside risk of using green infrastructure to control stormwater runoff. Compared with conventional gray infrastructure, green options have a shorter performance record and are more difficult to model. However, they are often cheaper and offer visible community benefits.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission issued the world’s first bond certified to the Water Climate Bond Standard last May. Market demand for third-party certified green bonds seems to be rising – and now, municipalities have a model. The $240-million bond will fund various wastewater and stormwater management projects in the commission’s Sewer System Improvement Program.