A Transparent and Intuitive Modeling Framework and Software for Efficient Land Allocation

John Gallo,Amanda Lombard,Gregory Aplet,Randal Greene,Janice Thomson

doi:10.3390/land9110444

John Gallo, Amanda Lombard + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110444

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Abstract

The purpose of this research is to better conserve biodiversity by improving land allocation modeling software. Here we introduce a planning support framework designed to be understood by and useful to land managers, stakeholders, and other decision-makers. With understanding comes trust and engagement, which often yield better implementation of model results. To do this, we break from traditional software such as Zonation and Marxan with Zones to prototype software that instead first asks the project team and stakeholders to make a straightforward multi-criteria decision tree used for traditional site evaluation analyses. The results can be used as is or fed into an algorithm for identifying a land allocation solution that is efficient in meeting several objectives including maximizing habitat representation, connectivity, and adjacency at a set cost budget. We tested the framework in five pilot regions and share the lessons learned from each, with a detailed description and evaluation of the fifth (in the central Sierra Nevada mountains of California) where the software effectively met the multiple objectives, for multiple zones (Restoration, Innovation, and Observation Zones). The framework is sufficiently general that it can be applied to a wide range of land use planning efforts.

Highlights

Since 1970, the population of animals on Earth has been cut by more than half [1]
multi-objective decision analysis (MODA) involves a large number of potential solutions, such as reserve design: identifying the solution set of sites that should be added to a reserve system to best maximize habitat representation and minimize cost
In the South African prototype, we introduced the option of using targets in the function of diminishing returns (FDR), and we provided a parameter for how much influence target attainment has on conservation of the element

Summary

Introduction

Since 1970, the population of animals on Earth has been cut by more than half [1]. Since Homo sapiens became a species, about 83% of the biomass of wild mammals has been lost [2], with the rate accelerating.Unlike the five previous episodes of mass destruction of life on earth, this one is caused by one of the species [3]. Systematic conservation planning, known as landscape conservation design, informs land-use planning and conservation funding. It can explicitly incorporate ecosystem services and the needs of biodiversity, and can combine these with social and economic constraints, in identifying the most important areas to conserve [4,5,6]. MADA problems focus on quantifying and combining the attributes (i.e., characteristics) of places. They involve a predetermined, limited number of alternatives (i.e., solutions), such as selecting the best site for a reserve out of many options or giving a suitability value to every site in a region. For a typical region of thousands of sites, there could be millions of potential solutions

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