Zonation

Summary
Type of tool	Application
Function	Conservation planning
Online / Desktop	Online
Computer infrastructure	Windows
Development status	Advanced development. Version 1.01, December 2006
Time of use	Post process
Licence	Freely usable for non-commercial uses

Zonation is a reserve selection framework for spatial conservation planning. It identifies areas important for retaining habitat quality and connectivity for multiple species, indirectly aiming at species’ long-term persistence. Zonation can be used for various purposes such as spatial conservation prioritization, conservation assessment, reserve selection and reserve network design.1

 

Description

 

Zonation produces a hierarchical prioritization of the landscape based on the conservation value of sites (cells), iteratively removing the least valuable cell (accounting for complementary) from the landscape until no cells remain. In this way, landscapes can be zoned according to their value for conservation.2

During each computation the Zonation produces detailed information about the decrease in species distributions as landscape is lost. The example area here is a 120 x 140 km2 region in eastern Australia. The data includes 7 priority fauna species and a 649 x 555 grid at 200 m cell resolution.3

 

The program produces, among other things, basic raster files from each run, which can be imported to GIS software to create maps or to conduct further analyses. The data requirements for the program are realistic and it can be run with large datasets containing up to 2000 species or 16 million element landscapes on an ordinary desktop PC.4

 

Zonation includes several practical features such as aggregation methods, uncertainty analysis, species prioritization and replacement cost analysis for current or proposed reserves. The data requirements are realistic and Zonation can analyse relatively large data sets in reasonable time. Windows software package includes user manual and tutorial.5

 

Components6

Analyses 

• Identification of optimal reserve areas
• Planning methods
  • Core-area Zonation
  • Additive benefit function
  • Targeting benefit function

 

Data

• Large-scale grids with
  • presence/absence -data
  • probabilities of occurrence
  • abundance/density -data
• Cost and mask layers

 

Features

• Connectivity methods
  • Distribution Smoothing
  • Boundary Quality Penalty
  • Boundary Length Penalty
• Uncertainty analysis aiming at reliable conservation decisions
• Species prioritization
• Clearly defined tradeoffs between species

 

The software has been written by Atte Moilanen of the Metapopulation Research Group, University of Helsinki.7

 

Function

• Analysis tools
  • Complex – gap analysis: recursive
• User interface
  • Personal use
  • Visual presentation

 

Why use this tool?

Zonation links species distribution modelling directly to quantitative reserve planning. Zonation includes species-specific handling of connectivity and natural weighting of species. It can analyse relatively large data sets in reasonable time. The analysis is deterministic and the results of a Zonation run can be summarized in a single graph with zones.

 

Zonation includes a number of useful novel features, such as distribution smoothing and boundary quality penalty aggregation methods as well as the uncertainty analysis. Core-area Zonation and additive benefit function Zonation are also novel planning options. 8

 

Who will use this tool?

• Data users
  • Expert

 

 How will the tool be used?

Typically one would enter one grid per species. Each cell would have either an observation of population size at that location, or, more commonly, a probability of occurrence or abundance predicted using a statistical habitat model.9

 

What limitations does the software have? Data sets that have been run with Zonation include 700 spp ´ 1M informative elements and 122 spp ´ 2M elements in the grid. Maximum data is limited by computer memory, and on a PC with 4GB of memory approximately 700 spp ´ 1M elements (or equivalently 70 spp ´ 10M) is close to the limit.10

 

What does Zonation presently not do? It does not work with vector-based planning units. It only allows a limited set of interactive planning analyses. It cannot handle multiple alternative land-use options. Zonation is for implement-in-one-go planning instead of multi-year incremental design of reserves.11

• Desktop application
• Windows OS
• User input is required

 

 Where in the data chain could this tool be used?

• User’s machine

 

 When could this tool be used?

• As a post process, after data is with the user

 

Availability

• Zonation: http://www.helsinki.fi/bioscience/consplan/index.html
• Download: http://www.helsinki.fi/bioscience/consplan/
• User manual: http://www.helsinki.fi/bioscience/consplan/Zonation_UserManual.pdf
• Flyer: http://www.helsinki.fi/bioscience/consplan/Zonation_Leaflet.pdf
• Version 1.01, December 2006
• Cost: Free. Freely usable for non-commercial uses
• Copyright: Atte Moilanen, University of Helsinki, Finland.
• No warranty. Use at own risk.

 

Comments

Zonation may deal better with species data than Marxan.

 

 

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