Software

Marxan is the most widely used decision-support software for conservation planning globally, and has been used to build marine and terrestrial conservation systems covering approximately 5% of the Earth's surface.  Marxan supports the design of cost-efficient networks that meet conservation targets for biodiversity.

Beyond protected area network design, Marxan has been applied to a range of conservation planning challenges, from designing optimal poaching patrols for game reserves and identifying where to conserve essential ecosystem services, to helping with transboundary ocean planning and understanding where transnational collaborations might best be prioritized to achieve conservation goals. 

For an introduction to Marxan using ArcGIS developed by The University of Queensland and Pacmara, please download the Tutorial. For an introduction to Marxan using the open source GIS software QGIS, please see "Companion Tools" and the CLUZ introduction presentation here.

Example of the Selection Frequency map from the British Columbia case-study available in the Marxan tutorial. 

Cite Marxan:

Ball, I.R., H.P. Possingham, and M. Watts. 2009. Marxan and relatives: Software for spatial conservation prioritisation. Chapter 14: Pages 185-195 in Spatial conservation prioritisation: Quantitative methods and computational tools. Eds Moilanen, A., K.A. Wilson, and H.P. Possingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Key References

Coming Soon

Marxan Web is a decision-support platform for doing Systematic Conservation Planning over the web and for sharing the results amongst stakeholders and the conservation community. It builds upon the existing Marxan software and offers the following new features and benefits:

• Streamlined access to spatial data layers from our partners (in development)
• Training and demonstration tutorials (in development)
• Built in geoprocessing and file construction
• Improved mapping and visualization capabilities
• Sharing and learning with other users

Marxan web is being developed in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and the BIOPAMA project of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Pilot testing is currently underway. 

Snapshot of the Marxan web interface where you can set targets for features, visualize outputs, change parameters and manage projects all in one location.

Marxan with Zones has the same functionality as Marxan but extends on the range of problems the software can solve and allows for the incorporation of multiple costs and zones into a systematic planning framework.  Applications could be zoning for marine protected areas with various protection levels or landscapes that balance agriculture, biodiversity protection, and sustainable forestry zones. Marxan with Zones assigns each planning unit in a study region to a particular zone in order to meet a number of ecological, social and economic objectives at a minimum total cost.

Example of different zoning allocation using Marxan with Zones. Image from V. Adams

Cite Marxan with Zones

Watts, M.E, I.R. Ball, R.R. Stewart, C.J. Klein, K. Wilson, C. Steinback, R. Lourival, L. Kircher, and H.P. Possingham. 2009. Marxan with Zones: software for optimal conservation based land- and sea-use zoning, Environmental Modelling & Software (2009), doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.06.005

Key References

Marxan with Connectivity is an extension of the Marxan software family that allows for more sophisticated connectivity considerations in spatial planning. For example, sites may be connected through processes such as larval dispersal, animal migrations, and genetic flows which are desirable objectives in conservation plans. Marxan with Connectivity has been applied in freshwater, marine, terrestrial and land-sea systems to conserve sites that may be spatially distanced but ecologically connected.

Schematic of different ways to incorporate connectivity data into Marxan (from Daigle et al. 2020).

Key References

Marxan with Probability (MarProb) is Marxan with an additional objective function term that incorporates the probability of a site being destroyed at some point in the future. This function helps plan for persistence in protected area networks (See Threats Formulation and Game et al. (2008)). 

Similar to Marxan with Connectivity, Marxan with Probabilities is available in Marxan versions 2.43 and above. To call this additional function, you need to edit the input.dat file and compile the appropriate input files. See software documents and datasets for more details. 

Example of how Marxan with Probabilities can be used to understand priorities given the likelihood of catastrophic climate change.

Key References