---
id: engines/invest
about:
  depiction: engines/invest.jpg
  label: InVEST
  description: >-
    Open-source suite of ecosystem-service models from the Natural Capital
    Alliance at Stanford; maps and values what nature provides in terrestrial,
    freshwater, marine, coastal and urban settings.
  tags:
    - ecosystem services
    - natural capital
    - conservation
tool:
  form: Open ecosystem-service models
  group: Ecosystems and land
  homepage: 'https://naturalcapitalalliance.stanford.edu/software'
open:
  source: open
  data: open
  api: unknown
  participation: open
domains:
  - food
relations:
  - predicate: answers
    target: questions/land-use-change
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: InVEST Software & Data
      url: 'https://naturalcapitalalliance.stanford.edu/software'
  reviewed: '2026-10-18'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: proposed
---
InVEST is a suite of 21 free, open-source models for mapping and valuing the goods and services people get from nature, made by the Natural Capital Alliance (NatCap) at Stanford University. The models cover terrestrial, freshwater, marine, coastal and urban ecosystems.

It is meant to inform decisions about land and water; the Alliance points to its featured projects and publications for examples of use, and the software page itself names no case.

The models run in the InVEST Workbench, a downloadable application, with a user guide and data sources. Community plugins extend the Workbench through a plugin registry, a Data Hub offers global layers and pre-processed inputs, and support comes through a community forum, video tutorials and a self-paced online course. Bugs and contributions go through public issue trackers.

Operational and maintained; NatCap publishes a quarterly software column.