When do conservation planning methods deliver? Quantifying the consequences of uncertainty

William T. Langford, Ascelin Gordon, Lucy Bastin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The rapid global loss of biodiversity has led to a proliferation of systematic conservation planning methods. In spite of their utility and mathematical sophistication, these methods only provide approximate solutions to real-world problems where there is uncertainty and temporal change. The consequences of errors in these solutions are seldom characterized or addressed. We propose a conceptual structure for exploring the consequences of input uncertainty and oversimpli?ed approximations to real-world processes for any conservation planning tool or strategy. We then present a computational framework based on this structure to quantitatively model species representation and persistence outcomes across a range of uncertainties. These include factors such as land costs, landscape structure, species composition and distribution, and temporal changes in habitat. We demonstrate the utility of the framework using several reserve selection methods including simple rules of thumb and more sophisticated tools such as Marxan and Zonation. We present new results showing how outcomes can be strongly affected by variation in problem characteristics that are seldom compared across multiple studies. These characteristics include number of species prioritized, distribution of species richness and rarity, and uncertainties in the amount and quality of habitat patches. We also demonstrate how the framework allows comparisons between conservation planning strategies and their response to error under a range of conditions. Using the approach presented here will improve conservation outcomes and resource allocation by making it easier to predict and quantify the consequences of many different uncertainties and assumptions simultaneously. Our results show that without more rigorously generalizable results, it is very dif?cult to predict the amount of error in any conservation plan. These results imply the need for standard practice to include evaluating the effects of multiple real-world complications on the behavior of any conservation planning method.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)123-135
Number of pages13
JournalEcological Informatics
Volume4
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2009

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Ecological Informatics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Langford, William T.; Gordon, Ascelin and Bastin, Lucy (2009). When do conservation planning methods deliver? Quantifying the consequences of uncertainty. Ecological Informatics, 4 (3), pp. 123-135. DOI 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2009.04.002

Keywords

  • conservation planning
  • model validation
  • reserve design
  • reserve selection
  • persistence
  • uncertainty

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