EcoVal
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What does nature give us, and what is that worth?

Pick a forest on the map to see what it gives us, how that can be valued, and what happens if it is felled. You can see the calculation behind every result and follow every number to its source.

What you can search

Pick an example to try it.

PlacesOpenStreetMap

CityTry:
TownTry:
DistrictsuburbTry:
VillageTry:
HamletTry:

Protected natureNaturvårdsverket

National parkTry:
Nature reserveTry:
Nature conservation areaTry:
Natural monumentTry:
Natura 2000 siteTry:

WaterSMHI

LakeTry:
WatercourseTry:
Damstill standing, from SMHI's dam registerTry:

WetlandsNaturvårdsverket

Ramsar wetlandTry:
Mire in the protection planTry:
Inventoried wetlandVMI, value classes 1–2 onlyTry:

Coordinates

in any of these forms; the map moves there and drops a pin

Decimal degrees, in either order
Degrees, minutes and seconds, also with Swedish Ö and V
SWEREF 99 TM, in metres

How names match

From two letters, ignoring case and å, ä, öVättern
At the start of the name or of any word in itTyresta-Åva
From three letters, anywhere in the nameSvartsjön
Near missesVättern
* stands for any run of charactersnames with sjö … ön

Not searchable

Unnamed or excluded nature
Key biotopes and nature value objects (mostly unnamed), swamp forests, rewetting agreements, the ban on draining land, areas of national interest, VMI's value classes 3–4, and dams no longer standing.
Places not in the list
Municipality or county names on their own (only as towns with those names), and islands, mountains and isolated farms.
Smaller water
Small streams that come only from OpenStreetMap. Only SVAR's watercourses are searched.
Addresses, streets and property designations
We have no data for them.

Many of these still show on the map as layers.

Analyse a forestHow it works

At a glance

What does nature do for us?

Pick a kind of nature and move the sliders. You see what it gives people and the climate every year, in typical Swedish values. What nature gives us in this way is called ecosystem services.

Kind of nature

Typical values for a Swedish forest, rounded. A real forest on the map will come out differently.

Working out the figures…

Analyse a real forest on the map

Shape the forest

10 ha
80 years
20 %
10 m³/ha
9 per ha

At least 40 cm thick at chest height.

Soil
People nearby

From about 500 adults within 10 km when remote to 250,000 at a city's edge.

Region

Four paths

Choose what to analyse

Each path compares nature as it is with what happens when we change it. Both sides are shown the same way.

Ready to use

Forest

Standingcompared withFelled

Timber, carbon, protected nature, wetland, water, recreation and berries. Draw any forest in Sweden.

Analyse a forest
Ready to use

Rivers, lakes and coasts

Free-flowingcompared withDammed

Eelgrass baycompared withHarbour

Salmon, sea trout and eel against hydropower dams; eelgrass and shallow bays against harbours and marinas; a lake's fishing. Pick a dam, a river or a lake, or draw a stretch of coast.

Analyse water
In development

Mires and peatland

Rewettedcompared withDrained

Carbon and methane in the peat, nutrients held back from water, floods and droughts, and wetland nature.

See what is coming
In development

Trees and green space in town

Keptcompared withBuilt over

Tree canopy and green ground today; cooling on hot days, cleaner air, less noise, stormwater held back and green space near home to come. Draw a park, a block or a street.

See the tree canopy

How it works

Every number can be traced

  1. Pick an area, or a dam

    Draw the outline on the map. On rivers you will pick a dam or a stretch of water.

  2. We read the open data

    Laser scans, maps and registers from Swedish agencies, for exactly that outline.

  3. See both futures

    Side by side, each number with its range and a path back to its formula, inputs and source.

CO₂ the meadow buries a year

–

for the meadow shaped above

Formula

CO₂ = carbon buried per ha × 44 / 12 × ha

Inputs

Source

Duarte et al. 2013, via Cole & Moksnes 2016

How the calculator's climate figure is traced: the forest and water maps show this for every number.

How sure we are

Three kinds of number, always labelled

Measured

Counted or measured directly: the area you draw, and where it overlaps registered nature.

Modelled

Estimated from measurements by a model: volume, carbon and growth from laser scans.

Borrowed from studies

Taken from studies of similar places: outdoor visits and what they are worth.

Every number also shows its range, low to high, not just a single value.

Sweden in numbers

Forest

68 %

of Sweden's land is forest land

Source: SCB, Markanvändningen i Sverige 2020

Rivers

1,700+

hydropower plants, all of which must get modern environmental conditions

Source: Ekonomifakta, Hur fungerar vattenkraft?; Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, Vattenkraftverk och dammar

Peatland

11 million t

CO₂e a year from drained peatland, about a fifth of Sweden's emissions

Source: Naturvårdsverket, Våtmarker och klimat

Coast

45 %

of the eelgrass meadows studied on the west coast lost since the 1980s

Source: Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, Rapport 2025:5

Built on open data

  • SLU
  • Skogsstyrelsen
  • Lantmäteriet
  • Naturvårdsverket
  • SMHI
  • Länsstyrelserna
  • OpenStreetMap