Tools
Spatial Conservation Design for Salmon
Conservation design pulls together data and assessments to explicitly state conservation goals, targets, and objectives and model different alternatives for conservation. Conservation planning tools such as Marxan are used to identify costs and benefits associated with various conservation design parameters. The Wild Salmon Center has focused primarily on developing conservation designs for salmon strongholds at multiple spatial scales. The case studies illustrate the process of using data from salmon population and watershed assessments.
In these case studies we use Marxan to apply several key conservation design concepts (adapted from Wilson et al, 2008) to select a near-optimal set of watersheds to meet a given conservation goal for salmon:
- Irreplaceability: the irreplaceability of a watershed reflects how important its inclusion is in the reserve system to meet conservation goals.
- Comprehensiveness: a comprehensive reserve system is one that contains every feature of biodiversity interest that occurs within a particular region.
- Efficiency: An efficient reserve network is one that meets the conservation objectives for the least possible cost
- Complementarity: A combination of watersheds that complement each other with different species achieve the ultimate goal of a comprehensive network in the most efficient manner.
- Flexibility: Flexible solutions provide options to achieve the conservation objectives in a number of ways.
Case Studies
- Forest Service Key Watersheds
- North American Salmon Stronghold Partnership (NASSP)
- North Pacific Rim
Additional Resources
- Marxan home page (University of Queensland)
- Marxan Good Practices Handbook (PacMara)
- How the Marxan algorithm works using a simple analogy (DICE)
- Presentation by Dr. Gordon Reeves on using Marxan for identifying strongholds (State of the Salmon, Vancouver BC 2009)
- Presentation on Marxan to US Forest Service