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Schmitt, Rafael

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0000-0002-5394-3649
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Last updated: June 11, 2025
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Rafael (he/him) is a senior scientist at the Natural Capital Project at Stanford. His research focuses on catchment-scale modeling of hydrologic and sediment transport processes, related ecosystem services, and their integration into decision-making processes. Rafael holds a degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from ETH Zurich and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from Politecnico Milano and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. His research merges traditional hydrological approaches, network modeling, optimization-based approaches, and machine learning to develop sustainable pathways to solving grand challenges in the global water-food-energy and ecosystem nexus.

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    Nature's Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-27) Damania, Richard; Polasky, Stephen; Ruckelshaus, Mary; Russ, Jason; Amann, Markus; Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca; Gerber, James; Hawthorne, Peter; Heger, Martin Philipp; Mamun, Saleh; Ruta, Giovanni; Schmitt, Rafael; Smith, Jeffrey; Vogl, Adrian; Wagner, Fabian; Zaveri, Esha
    The great expansion of economic activity since the end of World War II has caused an unprecedented rise in living standards, but it has also caused rapid changes in earth systems. Nearly all types of natural capital—the world’s stock of resources and services provided by nature—are in decline. Clean air, abundant and clean water, fertile soils, productive fisheries, dense forests, and healthy oceans are critical for healthy lives and healthy economies. Mounting pressures, however, suggest that the trend of declining natural capital may cast a long shadow into the future. "Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital" presents a novel approach to address these foundational challenges of sustainability. A methodology combining innovative science, new data sources, and cutting-edge biophysical and economic models builds sustainable resource efficiency frontiers to assess how countries can sustainably use their natural capital more efficiently. The analysis provides recommendations on how countries can better use their natural capital to achieve their economic and environ mental goals. The report indicates that significant efficiency gaps exist in nearly every country. Closing these gaps can address many of the world’s pressing economic and environmental problems—economic productivity, health, food and water security, and climate change. Although the approach outlined in this report will entail demanding policy reforms, the costs of inaction will be far higher.