Profile
Dr. Wenting Chen is senior researcher specializing in marine environmental and resource economics. She has more than 12 year experience on socio-economics of marine ecosystem restoration, marine ecosystem accounting, ocean investments, and financing for nature based solutions and climate change. She has led and played a leading role in many national and EU funded research projects. Her key scientific expertise lies in market valuation, non-market valuation, economic modelling connecting ecological-social systems and human welfare, and policy impact evaluation. She supervises both master and Ph.D students. She works actively on research funding raising and project management. She is a scoping expert for the 2nd IPBES global ecosystem services assessment and was expert reviewer for IPCC, UN SEEA EA.
1)Natural capital accounting
The project she led on economic values of the Oslofjord is the first project in Norway that study the application potential for coastal and marine natural capital accounting in Norway.
Wenting is coordinating a national research project on marine ecosystem accounting for integrated plan of the Oslofjord (MAREA), the first project in Norway to test the natural capital accounting in the coastal/marine area and to study how SEEA framework could be used in the coastal planning. She participates also a couple of spin-off projects such as Preproject for the marine ecosystem accounting pilot in Lofoten SVO, and NORAD project on ocean ecosystem accounting for Indonesia, supporting the pilot in Savu sea MPAs.
2)Economic valuation of ecosystem services in the context of ecosystem restoration
She coordinated a major research project on restoration of kelp forests in North Norway (Fram Centre ECOURCHIN, co-led the WP for socioeconomic impact assessment for habitat restoration in European seas for H2020 MERCES and EEA Blueforesting. She is principal investigator from NIVA for Horizon Europe Invest4Nature, and leading the socioeconomic impact assessment/social costs and benefits analysis to evidence the performance of nature investments. She led the study on effective economic instruments on reducing emissions from Norwegian salmon aquaculture (H2020 TAPAS) and supervised work on green financing and soil restoration after mining and industrial activities (IISD)
3)Nature-based solutions, financing and climate change
She is leading the tasks on developing the total economic valuation framework to incorporate climate risks and disaster risk reduction for nature-based solutions (Invest4Nature), and mapping barriers and enabling factors to promote further financing for nature based solution (Invest4Nture& Aa-agora). She works with climate change adaptation and economic valuation under climate change risks ( H2020 FutureMARES, EEA Blueforesting, and NFR BEST SIBERIAN, AMAP ocean acidification)
4)Ocean investments
In the FR7 TROPOS project, Wenting led socio-economic analyses for an offshore platform concept that combines renewable energy, shipping, aquaculture, and tourism. She coordinated the project group and the FR7 project MERMAID on a joint cross project report. In BioIndusty, she contributed to mapping the investment potentials for coastal natural resource based industry for Viken and Telemark&Vestfold county councils in Norway.
She also worked on a number of other projects to assess the socio-economic impacts for ocean investments (for aquaculture NFR Jellyfarm; for kelp harvesting in NFR OPTIMAKELP; for plastic waste in NFR ASAP; for management strategies for king crab in NFR PICO).
Her study areas ranges from Europe (Norway, Portugal, Poland, Austria and Denmark, Irland and Italy, Spain, Germany) to Asia (China and Indonesia).
5) Other scientific engagement
She is co-chair for working group on financing for nature-based solutions in EU NetworkNature+: Task force 3 “governance and financing for NBS”. She is a member of AMAP expert group under the Arctic Council. She was a steering committee member from the Norway of COST Action OceanGov, where her task was to connect the Norwegian marine management environment to the EU network and to collaborate with various working groups on issues such as land-ocean interaction, area-based management, deep sea mining and climate change.
1)Natural capital accounting
The project she led on economic values of the Oslofjord is the first project in Norway that study the application potential for coastal and marine natural capital accounting in Norway.
Wenting is coordinating a national research project on marine ecosystem accounting for integrated plan of the Oslofjord (MAREA), the first project in Norway to test the natural capital accounting in the coastal/marine area and to study how SEEA framework could be used in the coastal planning. She participates also a couple of spin-off projects such as Preproject for the marine ecosystem accounting pilot in Lofoten SVO, and NORAD project on ocean ecosystem accounting for Indonesia, supporting the pilot in Savu sea MPAs.
2)Economic valuation of ecosystem services in the context of ecosystem restoration
She coordinated a major research project on restoration of kelp forests in North Norway (Fram Centre ECOURCHIN, co-led the WP for socioeconomic impact assessment for habitat restoration in European seas for H2020 MERCES and EEA Blueforesting. She is principal investigator from NIVA for Horizon Europe Invest4Nature, and leading the socioeconomic impact assessment/social costs and benefits analysis to evidence the performance of nature investments. She led the study on effective economic instruments on reducing emissions from Norwegian salmon aquaculture (H2020 TAPAS) and supervised work on green financing and soil restoration after mining and industrial activities (IISD)
3)Nature-based solutions, financing and climate change
She is leading the tasks on developing the total economic valuation framework to incorporate climate risks and disaster risk reduction for nature-based solutions (Invest4Nature), and mapping barriers and enabling factors to promote further financing for nature based solution (Invest4Nture& Aa-agora). She works with climate change adaptation and economic valuation under climate change risks ( H2020 FutureMARES, EEA Blueforesting, and NFR BEST SIBERIAN, AMAP ocean acidification)
4)Ocean investments
In the FR7 TROPOS project, Wenting led socio-economic analyses for an offshore platform concept that combines renewable energy, shipping, aquaculture, and tourism. She coordinated the project group and the FR7 project MERMAID on a joint cross project report. In BioIndusty, she contributed to mapping the investment potentials for coastal natural resource based industry for Viken and Telemark&Vestfold county councils in Norway.
She also worked on a number of other projects to assess the socio-economic impacts for ocean investments (for aquaculture NFR Jellyfarm; for kelp harvesting in NFR OPTIMAKELP; for plastic waste in NFR ASAP; for management strategies for king crab in NFR PICO).
Her study areas ranges from Europe (Norway, Portugal, Poland, Austria and Denmark, Irland and Italy, Spain, Germany) to Asia (China and Indonesia).
5) Other scientific engagement
She is co-chair for working group on financing for nature-based solutions in EU NetworkNature+: Task force 3 “governance and financing for NBS”. She is a member of AMAP expert group under the Arctic Council. She was a steering committee member from the Norway of COST Action OceanGov, where her task was to connect the Norwegian marine management environment to the EU network and to collaborate with various working groups on issues such as land-ocean interaction, area-based management, deep sea mining and climate change.