A meta-analysis of existing practice of ecosystem services  (ES) and natural capital (NC) is taking place to identify the requirements for new policy options and instruments for improving the use of ES.

OPERAs is analysing the use of instruments and processes in existing case studies to generate a consistent ecosystem service database. To assist in the application of ES/NC it is essential to measure the efficiency of the instruments as well as establishing that there is evidence that the indicators used are valid for the specific ES application. It is through this method that new indicators and ranking approaches are being developed and applied to the existing case studies.