Research on Sustainable Infrastructure Leveraging Land Conservation

Countries around the world are facing increasing demand for infrastructure investment. Projections from McKinsey and Company and the World Economic Forum estimate that we will experience $90 trillion of infrastructure investment in water, energy, transportation, and communications systems over the next several decades, nearly double the value of currently existing infrastructure. At the same time, the impacts of global climate change will intensify and strategies with which to address its outcomes—including sea level rise, extreme weather events, and others—will be urgently needed. One potential solution to merging market demand for more infrastructure with this environmental imperative is leveraging and integrating land conservation into sustainable infrastructure initiatives.

To promote the expanded use of land conservation in sustainable infrastructure efforts globally, we aim to learn more about how individual jurisdictions in countries around the world are developing this kind of sustainable infrastructure. Of equal importance is understanding the intersection of national, regional, and local policies from around the world that work in innovative ways to sync the priorities of infrastructure development with the protection of land and water resources.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy invites proposals for original research papers and case studies addressing the implementation of sustainable infrastructure projects that utilize land conservation to address challenges at the nexus of environment and development across the globe. Policy-oriented empirical studies and international comparative works are encouraged.