Tool

Why do we need this tool?

Conservation and restoration planning often requires deciding where to intervene, which management actions to implement, and how to allocate limited resources. Different threats may affect the same area, while management actions differ in cost, effectiveness and their contribution to conservation objectives. Traditional spatial prioritisation approaches do not always adequately account for the simultaneous selection of multiple management actions.
PrioriActions addresses this challenge by providing an optimisation-based approach to identify cost-effective combinations of management actions and locations, considering conservation objectives, threats, budgets and other planning constraints.

Free description

PrioriActions is an open-source R package for spatial conservation and restoration planning using Mixed Integer Programming (MIP). It identifies optimal or near-optimal combinations of management actions and their spatial allocation to address multiple threats to biodiversity.

The tool incorporates management costs, conservation benefits, ecological targets, spatial connectivity and fragmentation, and budget constraints. It supports two main optimisation objectives: minimising costs while achieving specified conservation targets, or maximising conservation benefits within a fixed budget. It is compatible with commercial solvers (Gurobi, CPLEX) and open-source alternatives (CBC, SYMPHONY).

What does this tool?

PrioriActions helps decision-makers determine where to intervene, which management actions to implement, and how to allocate available resources to achieve conservation and restoration objectives.

It combines spatial information on biodiversity, threats, management effectiveness and costs to generate optimised management plans. The tool can:

Identify priority areas for conservation and restoration.

Select the most appropriate management actions to address different threats.

Optimise the spatial allocation of multiple actions.

Minimise implementation costs while meeting conservation targets.

Maximise ecological benefits within a limited budget.

Account for spatial connectivity and fragmentation.

Compare alternative management strategies, budgets and conservation targets.

The main output is a spatially explicit management plan identifying which actions should be implemented in each planning unit, together with their expected conservation benefits and costs.