Director, MarketLab
Economics
[email protected]
Sarah leads The Nature Conservancy’s economics and finance work within the California Chapter. She supports the Land, Land Networks, Water and Oceans teams in developing innovative market-based approaches to the chapter’s conservation objectives. Sarah currently leads a team that creates new markets, utilizes economic incentives and leverages private capital that have triple bottom line outcomes for people and nature. She has 15 years of experience in the fields of environmental economics, policy and strategy.
Before joining the Conservancy in 2015, Sarah was a consultant at Blu Skye, where she advised clients on corporate sustainability, and at AECOM, where she helped launch their environmental economics practice. Sarah has Masters degrees in Public Policy and Environmental Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Political Science from Amherst College.
What Sarah is working on now:
1. A groundwater market pilot in Ventura County to provide sustainable groundwater use for nature and agriculture. 2. An initiative to leverage investment capital for freshwater in the Central Valley in a manner that provides environmental and financial returns.
The Nature Conservancy with Willis Towers Watson, Sarah Heard
California has the highest wildfire risk in the US, and climate change will continue to exacerbate the risk, at least in the foreseeable future. As a result, California is facing an insurance crisis, as insurers are finding it harder and harder to write insurance in…
Taylor-Burns, R., Heard, S., Beck, M. W.
There is growing evidence for the beneficial role that wetlands can play in reducing flood risk, but in many urban estuaries, coastal development has resulted in dramatic habitat loss and fragmentation. In the past several decades, marsh restoration has emerged as a core management objective…
Wildfires in California, and across the western U.S., are increasing in frequency and severity, threatening both ecosystems and communities. Restoration—a combination of ecological thinning and prescribed fire—is one of the best tools to build forest resilience and prevent catastrophic wildfires, by reducing the buildup of…
We have an opportunity to apply the principles of economics and finance to demonstrate the value of conservation and create systems that incentivize the protection of nature at scale. In a changing climate, natural landscapes are extremely valuable for the benefits they provide to both…
Sandi Matsumoto, Melissa M. Rohde, Sarah Heard
Groundwater is a critical water supply around the world and is increasingly under threat from pumping that exceeds natural replenishment. Successful implementation of California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) depends local agencies working with stakeholders to develop plans and implement projects that reduce groundwater use,…
Sandi Matsumoto, Melissa M. Rohde, Sarah Heard
Groundwater is a critical water supply around the world and is increasingly under threat from pumping that exceeds natural replenishment. Successful implementation of California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) depends local agencies working with stakeholders to develop plans and implement projects that reduce groundwater use,…
Sarah Heard, E.J. Remson, Matthew Fienup, Siobhan King
In 2014, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) which regulates groundwater at scale for the first time, requiring the state’s largest source of stored water to be managed for long-term resilience. SGMA delegates the responsibility of achieving sustainable groundwater management by 2040 to…
Sarah Heard, E.J. Remson, Siobhan King, Sandi Matsumoto
The Conservancy has a vested interest in preserving farms in Ventura County because they buffer important river and wetland habitat from nearby urban lands. In western Ventura County, over 70% of groundwater use is agricultural. Due to requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), this use will…
Sarah Heard, Siobhan King, Eric Hallstein
California’s water supply is becoming increasingly unreliable. During dry times, consumptive use often outstrips supplies. As a result, people and nature suffer. This imbalance of supply and demand will likely grow worse if future demand for agricultural and urban water increases alongside a warming climate.…
Burns, C.E., A. Hoss, N. Smith, K. Klausmeyer, K. Fesenmeyer, A. Campbell, J. Carah, E. Forsburg, S. Heard, J.K. Howard, L. Hulette, S. Liu, P. Spraycar, B. Stranko, G. Werner, D. Wordham
This report identifies a set of strategies that will have the greatest impact on environmental flows, and to provide a resource for conservation organizations, resource agencies, and other stakeholders in California that may help create the conditions that allow freshwater species to thrive well into…
