Multiple-species conservation planning for European wetlands with different degrees of coordination

Selection and establishment of reserves was often done unplanned and uncoordinated between regions. Systematic conservation planning provides tools to identify optimally located priority areas for conservation. Planning for multiple species promises adequate provision for the needs of a range of threatened species simultaneously. Several studies apply the set-covering problem by minimizing resources for given conservation targets of multiple species. We extend this method by also considering different degrees of coordination in multiple-species conservation planning and representing reserve sizes endogenously. A deterministic, spatially explicit programming model solved with mixed integer programming is used to represent minimum habitat area thresholds for all included biodiversity features. The empirical model application to European wetland species addresses five different scenarios of coordination in conservation planning, including taxonomic, political, and biogeographical coordination of planning. Our approach illustrates and quantifies the efficiency of multi-species conservation activities. We show that maximum coordination in conservation planning enhances area efficiency by 30% compared to no coordination. Furthermore, strong coordination in conservation planning does not only reduce the area requirement, but synergy effects even enable the conservation features to achieve higher conservation objectives. Spatial subdivision of planning, however, leads to highest area requirements and less conservation target achievement.