Marine conservation planning in the Gulf of California, Mexico

Overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change threaten marine biodiversity globally and compromise the services that marine ecosystems provide. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) provides a framework to identify areas where actions can be effective in addressing these threats, while minimizing the costs of interventions. This study investigated the application of SCP in the Gulf of California, Mexico, a marine hotspot where at least seven prioritization exercises have been undertaken. We reviewed the seven marine conservation planning exercises and undertook spatial analyses for six of them. The existence of multiple marine conservation plans in the Gulf of California highlights some of the complexities and benefits of having multiple sets of priorities. This dataset summarizes selected elements of the seven marine planning exercises, including information about the overall prioritization approach and methods followed by planners.

    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Marine conservation planning in the Gulf of California, Mexico
    Data Publication title Marine conservation planning in the Gulf of California, Mexico
  • Description

    Overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change threaten marine biodiversity globally and compromise the services that marine ecosystems provide. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) provides a framework to identify areas where actions can be effective in addressing these threats, while minimizing the costs of interventions. This study investigated the application of SCP in the Gulf of California, Mexico, a marine hotspot where at least seven prioritization exercises have been undertaken. We reviewed the seven marine conservation planning exercises and undertook spatial analyses for six of them. The existence of multiple marine conservation plans in the Gulf of California highlights some of the complexities and benefits of having multiple sets of priorities. This dataset summarizes selected elements of the seven marine planning exercises, including information about the overall prioritization approach and methods followed by planners.

  • Other Descriptors
    • Descriptor

      This dataset summarizes selected elements of the seven marine planning exercises, including information about: prioritization approach and methods, planning domain, planning units, stakeholder involvement, conservation context, planning goals, conservation objectives, conservation features considered (patterns and processes), treatment of land-sea processes, threats, ecosystem services and climate change, costs, use of decision support tools, process followed to develop conservation alternatives, scheduling of actions/areas, and activities related to mainstreaming, implementation and monitoring. It also contains spatial information depicting the planning domains, maps of marine conservation priorities of the six planning exercises for which spatial information was available, and the spatial overlap of priorities. The dataset comprises two sub-datasets with spatial and non-spatial information regarding the reviewed case studies of marine planning in the Gulf of California, Mexico, which were also used for the spatial analysis described in the associated publication: Case studies: includes summary table with information about seven marine planning exercises, including information about the overall prioritization approach and methods followed by planners (Excel Spreadsheet), as well as supporting documentation underlying the review (PDF format). Portfolios: includes maps (ESRI Shapefiles and Raster Grids at 250m and 1km resolutions) of the planning domain boundaries (including the full planning area, and the land and marine components) and the resulting maps of conservation priorities, including full portfolios, as well as the land and sea components. It also contains a map depicting the sum/overlap of the seven priority maps.

    • Descriptor type Full
    • Descriptor

      This dataset is associated with the following publication: Álvarez-Romero, J. G., R. L. Pressey, N. C. Ban, J. Torre-Cosío, O. Aburto-Oropeza. 2013. Marine conservation planning in practice: lessons learned from the Gulf of California. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (23) 4: 483-505

    • Descriptor type Note
  • Data type collection
  • Keywords
    • biodiversity conservation
    • Marxan
    • Mexico
    • MPA
    • multi-objective planning
    • protected area
    • systematic conservation planning
    • water quality
    • coastal conservation
    • Gulf of California
    • integrated cross-realm planning
    • integrated land-sea conservation planning
    • land-based pollution
    • marine conservation
    • marine spatial planning
    • marine protected area
    • ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
  • Funding source
  • Research grant(s)/Scheme name(s)
    • -
  • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
    FoR Codes (*)
    SEO Codes
    Specify spatial or temporal setting of the data
    Temporal (time) coverage
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Time Period Current
    Spatial (location) coverage
  • Locations
    • Our review includes seven marine planning exercises undertaken across all or sections of the Gulf of California, Mexico, a marine conservation hotspot globally recognized for its marine biodiversity.
    • Mexico
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Physical Location Room 124, Building DB-019, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia; GD6QF2S\datasets\001_JORGE
    The Data Manager is: Jorge Alvarez Romero
    College or Centre
    Access conditions Conditional: Contact researchdata@jcu.edu.au to request access to this data.
  • Alternative access conditions
  • Data record size 7 case studies
    Citation Alvarez Romero, Jorge (2016): Marine conservation planning in the Gulf of California, Mexico. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.4225/28/56A1C156CF699