This seminar is organized by the Center for Hydrogeology and Geothermics (CHYN) at the University of Neuchâtel. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Matthew Brand from the Louisiana State University, who will discuss environmental impact bonds and a novel modeling approach to assess their feasibility for large-scale environmental interventions.

Soil erosion, poor water quality, and degraded ecosystems pose significant management challenges. Oftentimes, the key issue is not a lack of understanding about what is needed to address these problems but the inability to finance solutions at the scale that is needed to be effective. Environmental impact bonds (EIBs) are a new form of financing capable of overcoming institutional and cash flow barriers: Investors provide the capital required for comprehensive environmental interventions, which is repaid over time with interest by stakeholders who experience a reduction in management costs or savings. This talk describes a novel environmental and financial modeling method for quantifying the likelihood that the cost savings from implementing an environmental intervention will be able to pay for themselves. This model is applied to a sediment management problem at the U.S.‐Mexico border and the feasibility of an EIB is for several possible interventions is shown.