Abstract
In this work, we demonstrate a suite of conservation tools for conservation prioritization and visualization that enables integration of 1) openly available peer-reviewed data from federal and state agencies, 2) the priorities and values identified in local and regional plans with those identified by stakeholders representing local and regional agencies and organizations, and 3) a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) based optimization framework for assessing potential conservation projects. The framework developed as part of this work is implemented as geospatial webtools. The tools were developed and tested with goals proposed by the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) Restore Council. The goals are 1. Restore and Conserve Habitat, 2 Restore Water Quality, 3. Replenish and Protect Living and Marine Resources, 4. Enhance Community Resilience, and 5. Restore and Revitalize the Gulf Economy. The tool suite consists of three tools, 1) conservation planning inventory tool (CIT), 2) conservation prioritization tool (CPT) and 3) conservation visualization (CVT). The CIT is the first large-scale regional assessment of conservation planning efforts across governmental and non-governmental organizations encompassing all ecosystem types in the GoM. This comprehensive inventory tool is vital to understand the key factors that may drive existing conservation efforts, as well as identify potential gaps in conservation planning efforts. The CPT uses existing data with the MCDA to provide decision support to search for the project or ranking of all the alternatives based on decision-makers' preferences and organizational priorities. The CVT is developed to enable the users to explore the data behind CPT to identify potential regions using MCDA for conservation in the GoM. The CVT does not require potential project footprints to perform CPT like analysis rather it is performed on small hexagon parcels of 1 square km size spread across GoM.
