Global conservation planning database: marine proof-of-concept

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) has increasingly been used to prioritize conservation actions, including the design of new protected areas to achieve conservation objectives. Over the last 10 years, the number of marine SCP studies has increased exponentially, yet there is no structured or reliable way to find information on methods, trends, and progress.

The Conservation Planning Database project aims to create a global database to help track the development, implementation, and impact of systematic conservation planning (SCP) applications, and improve scholarship in the field. Consolidating a global database can play a critical role in advancing SCP theory and practice, thus facilitating more effective area-based conservation initiatives with real benefits for biodiversity and human well-being.

The marine proof-of-concept database includes marine conservation planning exercises following a SCP approach to guide the spatial allocation of limited resources to achieve explicit conservation objectives, and more recently, social and economic objectives. A key component of SCP is spatial prioritization, which involves locating and configuring conservation areas, generally aiming for cost-efficient designs.

    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Global conservation planning database: marine proof-of-concept
    Data Publication title Global conservation planning database: marine proof-of-concept
  • Description

    Systematic conservation planning (SCP) has increasingly been used to prioritize conservation actions, including the design of new protected areas to achieve conservation objectives. Over the last 10 years, the number of marine SCP studies has increased exponentially, yet there is no structured or reliable way to find information on methods, trends, and progress.

    The Conservation Planning Database project aims to create a global database to help track the development, implementation, and impact of systematic conservation planning (SCP) applications, and improve scholarship in the field. Consolidating a global database can play a critical role in advancing SCP theory and practice, thus facilitating more effective area-based conservation initiatives with real benefits for biodiversity and human well-being.

    The marine proof-of-concept database includes marine conservation planning exercises following a SCP approach to guide the spatial allocation of limited resources to achieve explicit conservation objectives, and more recently, social and economic objectives. A key component of SCP is spatial prioritization, which involves locating and configuring conservation areas, generally aiming for cost-efficient designs.

  • Other Descriptors
    • Descriptor

      The marine proof-of-concept database includes planning exercises that met the following four criteria:

      1. Define explicit conservation objectives, but can include social and economic objectives;

      2. Identify spatially explicit conservation areas (i.e. places where some form of spatially explicit management – from strict reservation to off-reserve management – is undertaken to contribute to defined objectives), sometimes associated with actions;

      3. Identify marine conservation areas (including coastal ecosystems) and/or terrestrial or freshwater conservation areas that can have downstream benefits on marine ecosystems (i.e. explicit marine conservation objectives). For example, protect forest areas against erosion to maintain water quality in marine areas; thus, configuration of terrestrial conservation areas reflect marine considerations; and

      4. Prioritized spatially using some form of optimization that accounted for complementarity between priority conservation areas and/or actions. This means that plans will necessarily use existing (e.g. C-Plan, Marxan, Zonation) or custom-made (e.g. linear programming, genetic algorithms) DSS.

      The marine SCP prototype currently contains 114 database fields and includes information on goals and objectives, geographic scope and location, targeted features, methods and decision-support tools, planning units, threats to features, stakeholder participation, planning outputs, and approaches to incorporating ecological connectivity, climate change, and socioeconomic considerations.

      The marine proof-of-concept database is the most comprehensive and systematic compilation of marine SCP studies to date, thus providing a unique opportunity for scientists to access and analyse further aspects of marine planning. It provides a full and consistent coverage of the primary literature on marine SCP (155 case studies), and constitutes an important step towards the development of a centralized repository of key information on planning exercises worldwide.

    • Descriptor type Full
    • Descriptor

      The background, structure and applications are described in the following paper, which should be cited if any of the information of the database is used in any form:

      Álvarez-Romero, J. G., M. Mills, V. M. Adams, G. G. Gurney, R. L. Pressey, R. Weeks, N. C. Ban, J. Cheok, T. E. Davies, J. C. Day, M. A. Hamel, H. M. Leslie, R. A. Magris, C. J. Storlie. 2018. Research advances and gaps in marine planning: towards a global database in systematic conservation planning. Biological Conservation: in press

    • Descriptor type Note
    • Descriptor

      This dataset consists of three files: (1) MS Excel file with a detailed description of the fields (including type, content, description and catalogues used to populate single- or multiple-choice fields in the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database; (2) survey-like file showing the fields currently contained in the marine proof-of-concept database (PDF format); and (3) Open Document Format (.ods) versions of the tables (catalogues) used to populate single- or multiple-choice fields in the database.

      The data should be accessed via the URL of the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database (http://database.conservationplanning.org/); a copy of the dataset is stored at James Cook University's HPC storage facility, which can be accessed using normal HPC methods (https://secure.jcu.edu.au/confluence/display/Public/HPRC+Storage), in the following location: as1.hpc.jcu.edu.au\jc236199\Datasets\Marine_SCP_Global_Database. Please contact the data manager (jorge.alvarezromero@jcu.edu.au) if you require access to the full database or a subset of it.

      Please cite both the data: (a) Alvarez-Romero, J. (2018). Global conservation planning database: marine proof-of-concept. James Cook University. [Data Files] http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/28/5b189660a6746; and paper (b) Álvarez-Romero, J. G., M. Mills, V. M. Adams, G. G. Gurney, R. L. Pressey, R. Weeks, N. C. Ban, J. Cheok, T. E. Davies, J. C. Day, M. A. Hamel, H. M. Leslie, R. A. Magris, C. J. Storlie. 2018. Research advances and gaps in marine planning: towards a global database in systematic conservation planning. Biological Conservation: in press.

    • Descriptor type Note
  • Data type dataset
  • Keywords
    • Aichi biodiversity targets
    • integrated land-sea planning
    • marine conservation planning
    • marine protected areas
    • marine spatial planning
    • systematic conservation planning
    • ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
  • Funding source
  • Research grant(s)/Scheme name(s)
    • 21109 - (James Cook University Research Activities) ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrated Coral Reef Studies
  • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
    People and Societies in the Tropics
    FoR Codes (*)
    SEO Codes
    Specify spatial or temporal setting of the data
    Temporal (time) coverage
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Time Period
    Spatial (location) coverage
  • Locations
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Physical Location The data should be accessed via the URL of the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database (http://database.conservationplanning.org/); a copy of the dataset is stored at James Cook University's HPC storage facility, which can be accessed using normal HPC methods (https://secure.jcu.edu.au/confluence/display/Public/HPRC+Storage), in the following location: as1.hpc.jcu.edu.au\jc236199\Datasets\Marine_SCP_Global_Database. Please contact the data manager (jorge.alvarezromero@jcu.edu.au) if you require access to the full database or a subset of it.
    Attachment Marine_SCP_Global_Database_Appendix.pdf Formatted PDF file describing the fields currently contained in the marine proof-of-concept database.
    Attachment Marine_SCP_Global_Database.xlsx Excel version of the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database. It includes four worksheets: 1. Marine_SCP_Database_Fields: detailed description of all the fields included in the database; 2. Marine_SCP_Database: full records of individual marine SCP case studies (one line per case study); 3. Marine_SCP_Planners: associated information about leading planners; 4. Marine_SCP_Library: associated library with detailed bibliographical information of the papers, reports, etc. used to document case studies; and 5. READ_ME: file describing colour coding for the first worksheet, which describes the database fields.
    Attachment Marine_SCP_Database_Fields_and_Catalogues.xlsx MS Excel file with a detailed description of the fields including type, content, description and catalogues, used to populate single- or multiple-choice fields in the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database.
    Attachment Marine_SCP_Database_Catalogues.ods Open Document Format (.ods) version of the tables (catalogues) used to populate single- or multiple-choice fields in the Global Marine Conservation Planning Database.
    The Data Manager is: Jorge Alvarez-Romero
    College or Centre
    Access conditions Open: free access under license
  • Alternative access conditions
  • Data record size 155 case studies, 125 fields
  • Related publications
  • Related websites
      Name The Conservation Planning Database
    • URL http://database.conservationplanning.org/
    • Notes The Conservation Planning Database project aims to create a global database to help track the development, implementation, and impact of SCP applications, and improve scholarship in the field.
  • Related metadata (including standards, codebooks, vocabularies, thesauri, ontologies)
  • Related data
      Name
    • URL
    • Notes
  • Related services
      Name
    • URL jcu.edu.au/services/009000
    • Notes James Cook University?s eResearch Centre supported the development of the website hosting the marine SCP database.
    Citation Alvarez-Romero, Jorge (2018): Global conservation planning database: marine proof-of-concept. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.4225/28/5b189660a6746