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Countries in south-eastern Europe are cooperating to conserve a sub-endemic lynx species, Lynx lynx martinoi. Yet, the planning of species conservation should go hand-in-hand with the planning and management of (new) protected areas. Lynx lynx martinoi has a small, fragmented distribution with a small total population size and an endangered population. This study combines species distribution modelling with spatial prioritisation techniques to identify conservation areas for Lynx lynx martinoi. The aim was to determine locations of high probability of occurrence for the lynx, to potentially increase current protected areas by 20 % in Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. The species distribution modelling used generalised linear models with lynx occurrence and pseudo-absence data. Two models were developed and fitted using the lynx data: one based on natural factors, and the second based on factors associated with human disturbance. The Zonation conservation planning software was then used to undertake spatial prioritisations of the landscape using the first model composed of natural factors as a biological feature, and (inverted) a second model composed of anthropological factors such as a cost layer. The first model included environmental factors as elevation, terrain ruggedness index, woodland and shrub land, and food factor as chamois prey (occurrences) and had a prediction accuracy of 82 %. Second model included anthropological factors as agricultural land and had a prediction accuracy of 65 %. Prioritised areas for extending protected areas for lynx conservation were found primarily in the Albania–Macedonia–Kosovo and Montenegro–Albania–Kosovo cross-border areas. We show how natural and human factors can be incorporated into spatially prioritising conservation areas on a landscape level. Our results show the importance of expanding the existing protected areas in cross-border areas of core lynx habitat. The priority of these cross-border areas highlight the importance international cooperation can play in designing and implementing a coherent and long-term conservation plan including a species conservation plan to securing the future of the lynx.

Habitat degradation is a major threat to the survival of chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii). Detailed knowledge for habitat conservation in this steppe-dwelling ungulate is needed if effective conservation and management strategies are to be developed. The distribution of potential habitat and the relative value of habitat to chiru on a regional scale remains unknown, hindering landscape conservation planning. Our aim was to identify and rank chiru habitat across the Chang Tang region of the Tibetan Plateau. We assessed overall habitat suitability using geographical data, field surveys, and information contained within previous studies. We identified 10194 km2 of optimal habitat (1.71 % of the region), 256816 km2 of suitable habitat (43.17 % of the region), and 213799 km2 of marginal habitat (35.94 % of the region). Our habitat model shows that suitable habitat is located primarily in the central (Nyingma county and Shuanghu county) and western (Geze county) regions of the study area. When we looked specifically at a chiru reserve (Chang Tang Nature Reserve) located within the study area, we found that over half of the reserve could be classified as suitable habitat. This highlights the regional importance of this reserve to chiru conservation. Our findings further indicate that the protection of suitable habitat and improvement of habitat linkages will be important features of any regional chiru conservation plan.

Aim: Conservation plans often struggle to account for connectivity in spatial prioritization approaches for the protection of migratory species. Protection of such species is challenging because their movements may be uncertain and variable, span vast distances, cross international borders and traverse land and sea habitats. Often we are faced with small samples of information from various sources and the collection of additional data can be costly and time-consuming. Therefore it is important to evaluate what degree of spatial information provides sufficient results for directing management actions. Here we develop and evaluate an approach that incorporates habitat and movement information to advance the conservation of migratory species. We test our approach using information on threatened loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean. Location: The Mediterranean Sea. Methods: We use Marxan, a spatially explicit decision support tool, to select priority conservation areas. Four approaches with increasing amounts of information about the loggerhead sea turtle are compared, ranging from (1) the broad distribution, (2) multiple habitat types that represent foraging, nesting and inter-nesting habitats, (3) mark-recapture movement information to (4) telemetry-derived migration tracks. Results: We find that spatial priorities for sea turtle conservation are sensitive to the information used in the prioritization process. Setting conservation targets for migration tracks altered the location of conservation priorities, indicating that conservation plans designed without such data would miss important sea turtle habitat. We discover that even a small number of tracks make a significant contribution to a spatial conservation plan if those tracks are substantially different. Main conclusions: This study presents a novel approach to improving spatial prioritization for conserving migratory species. We propose that future telemetry studies tailor their efforts towards conservation prioritization needs, meaning that spatially dispersed samples rather than just large numbers should be obtained. This work highlights the valuable information that telemetry research contributes to the conservation of migratory species.

This article presents the methodology adopted for the development of a preventive conservation plan for the Alexeïeff's collection, belonging to the Archives Françaises du Film (AFF). To this end, we highlight two aspects: 1) the adoption of a comparative method to specify what were the differences in the guard conditions of two types of collections belonging to the same institution; 2) the importance of a clear and inclusive dialogue between the preventive conservation consultant and the staff of the institution evaluated, in order that the preventive conservation plan is feasible and adapted to the reality of the institution for which it was designed.

Soil erosion is one of the major problems that threatens agricultural production and sustainability of natural resources in Syria. More than 85% of Syrian agricultural land is exposed to soil erosion at different rates. The present study estimated soil erosion in the eastern part of Yarmouk Basin in Al-Swida governorate (Southern Syria), by integrating the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model and Geographic Information System (GIS) approach. The parameters used for the RUSLE model were prepared from climatic data, field data, and satellite imageries. Results showed that average erosivity was 374.19 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 yr−1, while the K-factor ranged from 0.22 to 0.36 ton.ha.MJ−1.mm−1, and LS-factor reached 45% in some places. The estimated potential soil erosion ranged from 1.26 to 350.5 t ha− 1 yr− 1, with an average of 137.4 t ha− 1 yr− 1. Meanwhile, ninety-five percent of the study area experienced acceptable rate of erosion with soil loss, which ranged between 0 to 5 t ha− 1 yr− 1. While, rest of the area experienced unacceptable erosion rate, which ranged from 5 to 350 t ha− 1 yr− 1. Therefore, the areas which are experienced unacceptable erosion rate need immediate conservation plan from soil and water conservation point of view.

Change in forest cover can affect both ecological and socio-economic systems. In order to understand the dynamics of this process, accurate and spatially explicit information is urgently required. Quantifying the past forest cover change of Arba Gugu forest of Ethiopia has been lacking despite its significance in formulating effective forest conservation and management policy and strategy in the area. This study was intended to quantify the dynamics of forest cover over a period of 29 years (1986–2015) and to identify related driving forces or causal mechanisms. Satellite images of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) were used for the year 1986 and 1999. For the year 2015, the latest Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor of Landsat was used. The three images were classified using the random forest algorithm of the supervised classification technique. In addition, focus group discussions were conducted with three groups (a youth group from both sexes within 15–24 age range, a landowner group from women and a landowner group from men) in two highly deforested and two low deforested villages to explore drivers of deforestation. The results depicted that, the landscape encompasses stable non-forestland (54.6%) and stable forestland (13.9%) which were not converted since 1986 up to 2015. The remaining 31.5% experienced changes, of which 23% was converted from forest to non-forest and the rest (8.5%) transitioned from non-forest to forest class. The forest cover declined from 99,416 ha in 1986 to 60,334 ha in 2015. The rates of net-deforestation were 1.6% year−1 and 1.4% year−1 in the period 1986–1999 and 1999–2015, respectively. The most commonly reported drivers of deforestation were logging (39.1%) and farm expansion (36.8%). Thus, establishing a continuous forest monitoring system after formulating site-specific forest conservation plan is important.

Found throughout the tree of life and in every ecosystem, parasites are some of the most diverse, ecologically important animals on Earth-but in almost all cases, the least protected by wildlife or ecosystem conservation efforts. For decades, ecologists have been calling for research to understand parasites' important ecological role, and increasingly, to protect as many species from extinction as possible. However, most conservationists still work within priority systems for funding and effort that exclude or ignore parasites, or treat parasites as an obstacle to be overcome. Our working group identified 12 goals for the next decade that could advance parasite biodiversity conservation through an ambitious mix of research, advocacy, and management. Ecological Society of America; Georgetown Environment Initiative; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural HistorySmithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian National Museum of Natural History; Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) [OCE-1829509]; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Sloan Research FellowshipAlfred P. Sloan Foundation; University of Washington Innovation Award; University of Washington Royalty Research Fund awardUniversity of Washington The authors kindly thank the Ecological Society of America for supporting our workshop, as well as additional participants Kevin Burgio, Tad Dallas, and Roger Jovani; Laura Whitehouse, for her graphic design work on Fig. 1; Jonathan Wojcik for allowing the inclusion of his copyright Diplozoon illustration in Fig. 3; and dozens of collaborators and friends who have been part of the foundational work on parasite conservation, including Anna Phillips, Veronica Bueno, Carrie Cizauskas, Christopher Clements, Graeme Cumming, Eric Dougherty, Kevin Johnson, Wayne Getz, Nyeema Harris, Elizabeth Nichols, Sergey Mironov, Robert Poulin, and Heather Proctor. CJC gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Georgetown Environment Initiative, and research support from Anna Phillips and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. KCB was supported by a Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. CLW was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (OCE-1829509), an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Sloan Research Fellowship, a University of Washington Innovation Award, and a University of Washington Royalty Research Fund award. Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Public domain – authored by a U.S. government employee

Conservation provisions of US farm bills since 1985 have been aimed at mitigating negative environmental impacts of US agriculture. One of the long term goals has been to protect against soil erosion, with a focus specifically on highly erodible land (HEL). Conservation Compliance (CC) mandates that, in order to receive federal subsidies, farmers who plant annual crops on HEL must implement a conservation plan, with practices such as rotating crops and no-till farming. When crop prices increase, however, the incentives not to follow the plan increase, as conservation activities can reduce farmers’ profits. This study is the first to assess the performance of conservation compliance between 2007 and 2019, a period of historically high and variable crop prices, using geographical information system tools and crop data in a critical agricultural production region, the US Corn Belt. Our results indicate there was a substantial increase in continuous corn on HEL, a proxy measure for non-compliance, in several portions of the study area in correspondence with higher crop prices following the 2007 Energy Bill. This mirrored the change in crop rotations on all cropland. The increase was positively correlated with both absolute and relative corn prices. While at the height of absolute and relative corn prices there were increases in continuous corn on HEL everywhere across the study region except parts of Missouri, some of the largest changes occurred in environmentally sensitive regions and areas which use irrigation, thereby potentially creating disproportionate environmental impacts. Similar changes in continuous corn also occurred in all cropland in the region, indicating that mandatory conservation programs are as vulnerable to periods of high crop prices as voluntary programs. Better monitoring for both CC and other conservation programs is critical to ensure the policies work as intended.

Este artigo objetiva apresentar a importância de dois instrumentos de preservação do patrimônio arquitetônico moderno: o Plano de Conservação e o Manual de Uso, Operação e Manutenção desenvolvidos para as fachadas do Edifício Copan, mas que podem inspirar documentos similares para outros edifícios de arquitetura moderna. Se ambos instrumentos fossem exigidos pelos órgãos responsáveis pela preservação patrimonial, poderiam auxiliar os gestores e proprietários a cuidar do bem tombado de forma adequada e consciente, sem alterar as características arquitetônicas do imóvel, proporcionando durabilidade aos seus subsistemas construtivos. This article aims to present the importance of two preservation instruments: the Conservation Plan and the Manual of Use, Operation and Maintenance, which were developed for the façades of the Copan Building, but they can also inspire similar documents for any modern architecture building. The practice of both instruments could, if they were required by the governments departments responsible for the preservation, help managers and homeowners to take care of the heritage building properly and conscious, without changing the architectural features of the building providing durability to their subsystems.

The design of conservation management plans is a crucial task for ensuring the preservation of ecosystems. A conservation plan is typically embodied by two types of decisions: in which areas of a given territory it will be implemented, and how actions against threats will be deployed across these areas. These decisions are usually guided by the resulting ecological benefit, their spatial effectiveness, and their implementation cost. In this paper, we propose a multi-criteria optimization framework, for modeling and solving a mixed integer programming characterization of a multi-action and multi-species conservation management design problem. The optimization tool seeks for a management plan that maximizes ecological benefit and minimizes spatial fragmentation, simultaneously, while ensuring an implementation cost no greater than a given budget. For showing the effectiveness of the methodology, we consider a case study corresponding to a portion of the Mitchell river catchment, located in northern Australia, where 31 freshwater fish species are affected by four threats. The attained results show how the methodology exploits the trade-offs among the ecological, spatial and cost criteria, enabling decision-makers to explore and analyze a broad range of conservation plans. Selecting conservation plans in a more informed way allows to obtain the best outcomes from a strategic and operational point of view. &nbsp

This paper aimed to present a model of natural environment management in national parks in Poland in the context of increased tourist traffic. The research area comprised Polish national parks as they are characterized by barely altered nature, little human impact, and undisturbed natural phenomena. The methods involved the observational method, literature analysis and criticism, and the in-depth interview method employed in November 2019. The respondents included national park management staff. The questions were prepared in accordance with the Berlin Declaration principles of sustainable tourism development and were extended with the authors&rsquo, own items. The questionnaire contained 17 questions, grouped in four parts: science and documentation, tourism, cooperation and education, environmental threats. The results indicate that in order for actions to prove efficient in a park, a conservation plan should be carefully developed. Its correctness requires monitoring the state of the environment, tourist traffic size and trends, and tourists&rsquo, impact on the environment. An important condition for effective tourism management in parks is to increase the competences of the administering bodies and knowledge regarding individuals&rsquo, responsibilities. Boards should be able to evaluate and modify conservation plans, spatial development plans, municipality development strategies, and projects for investments within the parks.

The value estimates and conservation plan of ecosystem services (ES) may have multiple interpretations in a site consisting of a mixture of ecosystems (e.g., maquis, conifer forest, seashore and agroecosystems) and overlapping management practices (e.g., national parks and nature reserves as part of a biosphere reserve). This study examines the relative socioeconomic value of the revealed and stated preferences for distinct seasons, types of ecosystem, and management practices within the Carmel biosphere reserve (BR), Israel. The results show that the highest annual consumer-surplus (CS) per household was measured in springtime at a mixed maquis-forest ecosystem (USD 35.11). The springtime value mainly represented the preferences of local visitors, whereas the lower autumn CS (USD 11.2) value arose mainly from non-local visitors. Analysis of the reasons underlying willingness to pay (WTP) reveals that heritage is a strong positive predictor of WTP in all ecosystem types. The higher predicted WTP to preserve the ecosystems was estimated at the forest and the seashore locations (USD 59.5 and 49.6 respectively). This method highlights the preservation preferences for other areas besides the protected BR core-zone and nature-reserves and is recommended as a support-tool for decision-makers aiming to plan preservation for complex sites while maintaining social welfare.

Soil erosion is more sensitive in the highlands of Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is evaluating erosion risk potential using RUSLE model with GIS and remote sensing to identify erosion potential areas for soil and water resources conservation plan and to prepare soil loss risk map. Collected data were processed and analyzed using Arc GIS10.2 version. Total average annual soil loss from the 2,120.33ha was estimated at 7161.06tons. The lower soil loss rate was 2.5t/ha/yr on plantation and natural forest, the maximum value was 100.62tons/ha/yr in steep slope cultivated land and average soil loss was 50.31 tons/ha/yr. About 6.35% of the area is under extremely very severe soil erosion rate. Level soil bund, graded soil, stone or stone faced soil bund, fanyajju, cutoff- drain in the above part of the catchment, waterway along the slope, trenches on grazing land, check dam SWC measures at Quala got, integrated physical with biological measures like tree Lucerne, Vetiver grass are the recommended SWC measures. This approach can be applied in other basin or watershed for assessment of erosion risk potential using GIS and RS, and this can be used as a preliminary watershed planning tool for decision makers in Ethiopia like Woreda Agriculture and Natural Resources management Office.

Anticipating the effects of climate change on biodiversity and integrating them in planning protocols for the future are fundamental strategies to increase the effectiveness of conservation efforts. With climate change, species require dispersal skills to follow displacements of their suitable climates and therefore, spatial conservation interventions need to consider such dynamics. In general, common planning frameworks identify networks of conservation areas seemed important for species range shifts. However, it is highly unlikely that all the areas in a network present synchronous conservation value. Furthermore, given the continuous (spatial and temporal autocorrelated) nature of threats and ecological processes, the value of each area is largely dependent on the state of the neighboring areas in the recent past. In this study, a family of three models centered on the prioritization (not of single areas but) of temporal chains of areas as conservation units is presented. These models drive the use of financial investments through time in order to maximize the persistence of biodiversity in dynamic environments. Alike the most typical approaches, the here introduced models allow investments to be transferred between areas losing conservation relevancy to the areas that gain relevancy. A fictitious (but plausible) conservation plan for ten mammal species in Iberian Peninsula up to 2080 is used to illustrate the setting-up and outputs of the models. Results evidence that the conservation effectiveness achieved in each model depends on singular spatio-temporal distribution relationships among species and between species and distinct land-uses. Planners should then investigate the sensitivity of their goals to distinct decision-support tools even when driven by similar designs and constraints.

There is no doubt that one of the most difficult challenges facing the monument conservator is how to put a plan for conservation?, What is the criteria that control the success of such plan?.

Most threatened species do not yet have an integrated conservation plan to guide zoos and aquariums in species selection and conservation action. To address this issue, the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG), in collaboration with regional zoo and aquarium associations, has developed a new process-an Integrated Collection Assessment and Planning (ICAP) workshop. This brings in situ and ex situ communities together to apply the decision process of the IUCN SSC Guidelines on the Use of Ex Situ Management for Species Conservation to the task of regional or global collection planning. The first ICAP workshop was held in 2016 for 43 canids and hyaenids in collaboration with the relevant regional zoo and aquarium associations and IUCN Specialist Groups. The ICAP process provides a comprehensive assessment that will enhance species conservation by providing guidance to zoos and aquariums on conservation priorities for collection planning, conservation education messaging, in situ field support, and integration of in situ and ex situ efforts, as well as by promoting collaboration among regional zoo and aquarium associations, field-based conservationists, and IUCN SSC Specialist Groups.

Semarang is one of big cities in Indonesia contains of multy ethnics. They traditionally settled down inside a group of villages. Kauman is the cultural heritage of Muslim settlement in Semarang. The peculiarity of local Muslims in Java’s coastline and the strong social cohesion colour the people’s daily life. Seochon in Seoul is a historic area and is the home for more than 670 hanoks. In 2008, Seoul Metropolitan Government issued a conservation plan and recruited a team of architects and academics to observe and investigate Seochon’s condition and discover the possibilities of conservation there. It turned out that Seochon has a great potential for revitalization. Nowadays, Seochon has become a tourism destination having both traditional and contemporary cultural value. This research aims to understand the efforts of preservation done by the government and public participation for the sake of preservation. This research used primary and secondary data and comparative study methods. Seochon village has been successful in developing preservation and preservation placed as the best example. The result of research showed that the conservation and preservation of Kauman needs a workable rules to manage and investigate the potential and resources. The result of this research could be used to any other cases similar to Kauman.

Resources for biodiversity conservation and invasive plant management are limited, and restoring invaded vegetation is labour-intensive and expensive. Managers must prioritize their actions to achieve their goals efficiently and effectively. They must distinguish between areas that require only the removal of invasive alien plants (“passive restoration”) from those that require additional restoration measures (“active restoration”). This study used a multi-criterion approach (Analytical Hierarchical Process) to develop a framework for identifying areas that require active restoration, and then to prioritize these areas for active restoration. The South African city of Cape Town is used as a test case to illustrate the utility of the framework. Framework criteria selected in determining the need for active restoration included: dominant alien species invading the area, density of invasion, duration of invasion, indigenous vegetation cover, adjacent land use, level of disturbance, size of the area, aspect, soil texture, soil depth and erodibility, slope and vegetation type. In deciding which areas to prioritize for active restoration, factors such as vegetation conservation status, selection in a regional conservation plan and connectivity function were assessed. Importance in ecosystem functioning (by providing a diversity of habitats and soil conservation) and the delivery of ecosystem service benefits were also considered. The resulting framework provides an objective tool for prioritizing sites for active restoration.

The systematic documentation of cultural heritage in Indonesia has been developed after the establishment of Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (1778) and De Oudheidkundige Dienst (1913) by the Netherlands Indies government. After Indonesian independent, the tasks of cultural heritage documentation take over by The Ministry of Culture (now become The Ministry of Education of Culture) with focus on the ancient and classical heritage, so called dead monument. The needed of comprehensive documentation data regarding cultural heritage become significant issues since the government and private sector pay attention to the preservation of heritage building in the urban site, so called living monument. The archives of original drawing plan many times do not fit with the existing condition, while the conservation plan demands a document such as built drawing plan to work on. The technology, methodology and system to provide such comprehensive document of heritage building and site become important, to produce good conservation plan and heritage building regular maintenance. It means the products will have a sustainable and various utility values. Since 1994, Documentation Centre for Architecture – Indonesia (PDA), has established to meet the needs of a comprehensive data of heritage building (living monuments), to utilized as basic document for conservation planning. Not only provide document of the digital drawing such site plan, plan, elevation, section and details of architecture elements, but also document of historic research, material analysis and completed with diagnosis and mapping of building damages. This manuscript is about PDA field experience, working in this subject issue

The Fondation Strutt Foundation has taken on the conservation planning of the Strutt House as part of a P3 collaborative effort with the National Capital Commission (NCC). This paper will address three of the primary documents/data sets (documentary methodologies) being used on/for the Strutt House project. The Strutt House is a Recognized Federal Heritage Building and a significant example of Canadian modernist architecture. Stakeholder is a term often used in Architectural Projects reflecting an economic interest in success of the project. In conservation projects the stakeholder generally reflects social, cultural and/or economic interests in a given project. The Strutt House project has benefitted from stakeholders that have all been interested in the above, as well as the education of our future conservationists. The Strutt house was purchased from the architect’s daughter in 2010, and as part of the acquisition, a Heritage Structure Report was commissioned and produced by PTAH Consultants Inc., Architects. The report forms the first of the primary referenced documents of this paper, including: a comprehensive photographic record of existing conditions; and, a building simulation model of the house ‘as designed/built’. This HSR and the accompanying data/documents have been adopted as the basis of an evolving document in the development of the Conservation Plan including: additional heritage surveys and technologies; traditional drawings, photographic and video records; and, a series of workshops on the structural stabilization efforts, thermography scans, and smoke/blow-door (air pressure) testing. In 2016, Pierre Jouan, a Master’s thesis student from KU Leuvan, working with the Carleton University CIMS lab under the direction of Professor Mario Santana, and the FSF completed a 3-D scanning and photogrammetry workshop on the Strutt House and created a building information model (BIM model) from the collected data. The three primary documentation processes being addressed in this paper are really a series of directed research or focussed investigations resulting in a collection of data sets resolved -or combined- into a document. They will assist in the development of the long-term Programming and Conservation Management Plan of the Strutt House.

The aim of this study was to compare the performances of Landsat and SPOT imagery to map wetland vegetation types in the Klipsriviersberg Nature Reserve, South Africa. The Gauteng Conservation Plan 3.3 (C-Plan 3) was used to delineate the boundaries of the wetlands in the study area. According to the plan, the proposed study area falls within the Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) and Ecological Support Areas (ESA). Limited field data were collected within the boundaries of the wetlands during summer 2015 when the vegetation cover was relatively high. These data identified features including sparse vegetation, dense vegetation, grassland and bare land.Additional samples were added from Google Earth image to increase sample size. Both the field data and Google Earth data were used as reference against which the performances of SPOT and Landsat product were compared. Unsupervised classification was used to classify SPOT and Landsat images acquired in summer 2015. The results showed that overall accuracy of SPOT images is higher than Landsat images. This is attributed to its high spatial resolution of 1.5 m compared to 30 m spatial resolution of Landsat imagery. This indicates that SPOT imagery is recommended to map wetland vegetation diversity in a localised area such as the study area. The current high temporal resolution of the image has also an added advantage that conservationists should exploit.

At the turn of the century, a series of new heritage concepts have appeared in the area of international cultural heritage protection, such as cultural landscape, cultural route, heritage corridor, heritage canal, which presents the development of people’s recognition of cultural heritage. According to The Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, management planning must be contained in the material used to apply for world heritage. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage designed the mission and work schedule of China’s Grand Canal conservation planning in 2008. This research will introduce the working system of China’s Grand Canal conservation planning on three levels: city, province and nation. It will also summarize the characteristics of the core technologies in China’s Grand Canal conservation planning, including key issues like the identification of the core characteristic of China’s Grand Canal, value assessment and determination of the protection scope. Through reviewing, thinking and analyzing the previous accomplishments, the research will offer some advices for the similar world heritage conservation planning after.

In the last years it has been progressively invested many efforts in the cultural heritage digitization: surveying, modeling activities, diagnostic analysis and historic data collection of architectural heritage. Such actions have been mainly acquired for the preservation process, during the restoration and construction site. Unfortunately, many of them are left abandoned in a latent status without any connection with the long life cycle of the historic architectures or connection to the dissemination. The paper presents the case of an informative model for the Basilica di Collemaggio generated on high resolution surveying (laser scanning, photogrammetric point clouds and IRT Infrared Thermography) to manage the knowledge acquired on the geometry and the collected information on materials, construction technology and decay analysis for the design and conservation after the earthquake occurred at L’Aquila. The paper illustrates the HBIM (Heritage Building Information Model) achieved to support the restoration process funded by EniServizi within the project ‘Restart from Collemaggio’. It is described the generative modelling process implemented to embody the complexity and specificity of the morphology related to the collected information on the state of the art, the sum of the current damages and transformations during the centuries, for the preservation plan of the monument. Many damaged structures as in the case of the north wall with the Holy Door and of the arched naves with the ancient pillars have been restored preserving the maximum level of authenticity of the materials and construction techniques. The HBIM of the Basilica, re-opened to the public on December 2017, is ready to a sentinel role among past present and future.

International audience; This study proposes and discusses a multi-scale spatial planning method implemented simultaneously at local and national level to prioritize ecosystem management actions across landscapes and seascapes. Mismatches in scale between the occurrence of biodiversity patterns and ecological processes, and the size and nature of the human footprint, and the different levels and scope of governance, are a significant challenge in conservation planning. These scale mismatches are further confounded by data resolution disparities across and amongst the different scales. To address this challenge, we developed a multi-resolution scale-linked marine spatial planning method. We tested this approach in the development of a Conservation Plan for a significant portion of South Africa's exclusive economic zone, adjacent to the east coast province of KwaZulu-Natal (the SeaPlan project). The study's dataset integrated the geographic distribution of 390 biodiversity elements (spe-cies, habitats, and oceanographic processes) and 38 human activities. A multi-resolution system of planning unit layers (PUL), with individual PUs ranging in resolution from 0.2 to 10 km, was designed to arrange and analyse these data. Spatial priorities for conservation were selected incrementally at different scales, contributing conservation targets from the fine-, medium-and large-scale analyses, and from the coast to the offshore. Compared to a basic single-resolution scale-unlinked plan, our multi-resolution scale-linked method selects 6% less conservation area to achieve the same targets. Compared to a multi-resolution scale-unlinked plan, our method requires only an additional 5% area. Overall, this method reflects the multi-scale nature of marine social-ecological systems more realistically, is relatively simple and replicable, and serves to better connect fine-scale and large-scale spatial management policies. We discuss the impacts of this study on protected area expansion planning processes in South Africa. This study showcases a methodological advance that has the potential to impact marine spatial planning practices and policies.

This study aims to identify the factors that constitute the social value of heritage in relation to sustainable tourism. To do so, this paper provides a theoretical contribution by unifying the fields of heritage management and sustainable tourism through a mixed-method approach. It showcases the social dimension of the World Heritage Site of Altamira, Spain, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. Research findings provide information about the multiple factors determining the social value of heritage, namely: existential, aesthetic, economic, and legacy values and the risks associated with underestimating the contemporary social value. Ultimately, this research paves the way for improving normative approaches toward sustainable tourism and, offers practical solutions to the challenges faced by the Altamira and other World Heritage Sites., This work was supported by Project ID 2013-1126/001-001: “New ways of Engaging audiences, Activating societal relations and Renewing practices in Cultural Heritage (NEARCH)” European Comission – Culture Programme (2013–2018). The data are based on the results of the Project on the Social Value of Altamira, led by the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit-CSIC), within the framework of the Research Programme for the Preventive Conservation and Access Regime for the Cave of Altamira, which was carried out between 2012 and 2014, with the support of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. This research was supported by funds from the Program for consolidating and structuring competitive research groups (ED431B 2017/42 and ED341D R2016/014, Xunta de Galicia, Spain), the Spanish national research project HAR2013-47889-C3-3-P: Poder central y poderes locales entre la antigüedad tardía y la Alta Edad Media, 400–900 D.C. El Norte de Hispania y su contexto europeo and the Spanish national research project CSO2017-85188-R: La construcción social de la calidad alimentaria: mediaciones entre la producción y el consumo en una economía basada en el conocimiento.

Since 1995, sage-grouse (Centrocercus spp.) conservation planning in the western United States has largely been based upon local working groups comprised of federal, state and local governments, environmental groups, landowners, interested citizens. In this article, we review the history and process of these local working groups in western Colorado. These groups are generally convened by one or more government agencies, operate on the general principle of consensus, and have little or no administrative or financial support. The local working groups were generally comprised of field biologist, rancher/landowners, members of local environmental groups and occasionally representatives from local governments. The plans they generated were based upon consensus, therefore difficult issues were often bypassed in order to keep the plan development process moving. The early success of a number of these local working groups resulted in sage-grouse conservation plans such as the Gunnison Sage-grouse Conservation Plan, which provides sage-grouse conservation guidance for the Gunnison Basin in South Central Colorado. However, there were problems such as an undefined membership, lack of administrative support, and achieving consensus. The Gunnison County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) created an entirely new approach to the local work group concept. The Gunnison Basin Sage-grouse Strategic Committee (GBSGSC) was created, with appointed (by the BoCC) representatives from the federal land management agencies, the state wildlife agency, the neighboring county, the ranching community, the environmental community, the development community, the recreation community, and the public at large. Formal operating guidelines were adopted by the BoCC. Specific membership criteria were identified. Administrative staff from Gunnison County was assigned to the Committee. Importantly, the BoCC determined that, though consensus was an admirable goal, this Committee would operate under majority rule. The GBSGSC has been meeting monthly since 2005.

Managed wetlands provide critical foraging and roosting habitats for shorebirds during migration; therefore, ensuring their availability is a priority action in shorebird conservation plans. Contemporary shorebird conservation plans rely on a number of assumptions about shorebird prey resources and migratory behavior to determine stopover habitat requirements. For example, the US Shorebird Conservation Plan for the Southeast-Caribbean region assumes that average benthic invertebrate biomass in foraging habitats is 2.4 g dry mass m−2 and that the dominant prey item of shorebirds in the region is Chironomid larvae. For effective conservation and management, it is important to test working assumptions and update predictive models that are used to estimate habitat requirements. We surveyed migratory shorebirds and sampled the benthic invertebrate community in coastal managed wetlands of South Carolina. We sampled invertebrates at three points in time representing early, middle, and late stages of spring migration, and concurrently surveyed shorebird stopover populations at approximately 7-day intervals throughout migration. We used analysis of variance by ranks to test for temporal variation in invertebrate biomass and density, and we used a model based approach (linear mixed model and Monte Carlo simulation) to estimate mean biomass and density. There was little evidence of a temporal variation in biomass or density during the course of spring shorebird migration, suggesting that shorebirds did not deplete invertebrate prey resources at our site. Estimated biomass was 1.47 g dry mass m−2 (95 % credible interval 0.13–3.55), approximately 39 % lower than values used in the regional shorebird conservation plan. An additional 4728 ha (a 63 % increase) would be required if habitat objectives were derived from biomass levels observed in our study. Polychaetes, especially Laeonereis culveri (2569 individuals m−2), were the most abundant prey in foraging habitats at our site. Polychaetes have lower caloric content than levels assumed in the regional plan; when lower caloric content and lower biomass levels are used to determine habitat objectives, an additional 6395 ha would be required (86 % increase). Shorebird conservation and management plans would benefit from considering the uncertainty in parameters used to derive habitat objectives, especially biomass and caloric content of prey resources. Iterative testing of models that are specific to the planning region will provide rapid advances for management and conservation of migratory shorebirds and coastal managed wetlands.

Conservation plans are commonly used tools for prioritizing areas for protection, but plan implementation is often limited and rarely formally evaluated. Without evaluations of planning outcomes, it is difficult to justify expending resources to develop new plans and to adapt future plans so they are more likely to achieve desired conservation outcomes. We evaluated implementation of four conservation plans in Wisconsin, USA, by quantifying land protection within plan boundaries over time. We found that 44% of lands inside plans are currently protected, compared to 5% outside plans. We then asked which environmental, institutional, and socio-economic factors explained implementation of the most recent (2008) plan by the state natural resources agency. Institutional and environmental metrics related to agency policy and past actions explained 61% of implementation variability among individual priority areas within the plan: the agency having secured acquisition authority (a policy requirement) and subsequently successfully protected land in the priority area prior to the conservation plan being completed, and acquiring land near open water (a policy priority). Our findings suggest that implementation is possible under a wide variety of socio-economic settings and indicate that development of new conservation plans may not necessarily lead to action in new locations in the near term, but rather may facilitate action in locations where the institutional groundwork for action has already been laid. Considering institutional policies of active conservation partners in the development of future conservation plans can facilitate identification of priority areas that are more likely to correspond with on-the-ground implementation opportunities.

Many species of fish depend on estuaries to complete their development. Most of them have a planktonic early life stage, and adults of the same species often live in a different habitat. The aim was to assess the importance of incorporating data on fish eggs and larvae in systematic conservation planning at the Patos Lagoon estuary, Brazil. Different scenarios, where fish larvae and eggs were or were not included in the systematic conservation planning process, were investigated. An estimate of artisanal fishing revenue was used as an opportunity cost and compared with a spatially homogeneous cost. Cluster analysis was performed to assess the impact of incorporating ichthyoplankton data on the outcomes of estuarine systematic conservation planning. Regardless of the opportunity cost, the spatial plans fell into two clusters – those with and without fish egg and larvae data. This shows that egg and larvae data have a large impact on priorities for conservation actions in space. This approach is the first to combine artisanal fishery economic spatial data with a conservation plan that incorporates early life stages of fishes. In the case of the Patos Lagoon estuary, shallow areas were particularly important for reaching conservation targets in all scenarios. Considering the dynamic nature of these ecosystems, much work needs to be done to devise better methods of spatial planning in estuaries.

This paper assesses the traditional hutong street system and siheyuan courtyard house as an urban development model in contemporary Beijing by comparing it with the practiced alternative. Official government standards are used as criteria for measuring the performance of the urban form types. Criteria derived from government documents emphasise the efficiency and low-carbon emission of the transportation system and efficiency in land use, via higher densities. Minimum site areas devoted to green space are also specified. We compared the use of land resources in a sample of 9 hutong areas with those of a sample of 22 newly built communities. We collected traffic data and interviewed residents in these areas. We also examined transportation as a user of urban land, as well as the implications for land resources if the 2002 conservation plan is fully implemented. It was found that the hutong development models underperform with regard to building density depending on form type, but achieve much higher population densities than suburban housing. Motor traffic infrastructure in contemporary development takes up 3 times as much of the development area as the hutong do in their development area. The hutong outperform the rest of the urban fabric with regard to sustainable transport with 0.17 of the car mode proportion for all of Beijing. There is heavy dependency on three-wheeled vehicles for goods transport and high levels of walking. Moving the remaining population of the hutong as planned would require about 1800 ha of new residential land more than 30 km from the city centre.

The Amur tiger and leopard, once roaming over the Eurasian continent, are now endangered and confined to the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, Russia—a landscape that has been increasingly fragmented due to human activities. The ultimate fate of these big cats depends on whether they can resettle in their previous main historical range in NE China. Recent sightings of these animals along the China–Russia border have aroused new hope, but direct evidence is lacking. The main objectives of our study were (1) to determine the abundance and spatiotemporal patterns of tigers, leopards, and primary prey; (2) to investigate factors influencing the resettlement of the two big cats; and (3) to propose a landscape-scale conservation plan to secure the long-term sustainability of the Amur tiger and leopard. We monitored the two felids, their prey, and human activities, with 380 camera-trap stations, for a total of 175,127 trap days and over an area of 6000 km2 in NE China. We used the constraint line method to characterize cattle grazing and human influences on tigers, leopards, and their prey species. Our results show that, unexpectedly, at least 26 tigers and 42 leopards are present within China, which are confined primarily to a narrow area along the border with Russia. We have further identified that cattle grazing and human disturbances are the key hurdles to the dispersal of the tigers and leopards farther into China where suitable habitat is potentially available. Amur tigers and leopards are returning to China, indeed, but their long-term resettlement is not likely without active and timely conservation efforts on landscape and regional scales. To overcome the hurdles to the resettlement of tigers and leopards in China, we propose a “Tiger and Leopard Resettlement Program” that will engage the government, local communities, and researchers, so that the long-term sustainability of the Amur tigers and leopards can be ensured.

SummaryThis study aims to evaluate the current situation and diversity of indigenous cattle breeds in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A survey was executed in five regions of the KSA. We recorded population sizes, phenotypes and rearing conditions. TaurineBos taurusand zebuBos indicuspopulations were found. The zebu cattle include two breeds; the Hassawi and the Janobi. The Hassawi breed was found in the eastern region and it is in decreasing number. It may become extinct soon in the absence of conservation plan. Janobi remains common with thousand animals in the south-western part of the country. Only one indigenous taurine cow, showing no phenotypic evidence of zebu introgression, was found in the Central region of KSA (Najd Plateau). This cow might be the last pure indigenous Saudi Arabia taurine animal and therefore, the breed is now close to extinction. We advocate the urgency to design conservation plan for the indigenous livestock of the KSA and to complement these with phenotypic as well as genotypic information.

1. Industrial fisheries represent one of the most serious threats worldwide to seabird conservation. Death of birds in fishing operations (i.e. bycatch) has especially adverse effects on populations of albatrosses, which have extremely low fecundity. 2. The single population worldwide of Amsterdam albatross (Diomedea amsterdamensis) comprises only 167 individuals and risks considerable decline over the mid-term from additional mortality levels potentially induced by fisheries. The priority actions listed in the current conservation plan for this species included characterizing the longline fisheries operating within its range, dynamically analysing the overlap between albatrosses and these fisheries, and providing fisheries management authorities with potential impact estimates of longline fisheries on the Amsterdam albatross. 3. During all life-cycle stages and year quarters the birds overlapped extensively with fishing effort in the southern Indian and Atlantic oceans. Fishing effort, and consequently overlap score (calculated as the product of fishing effort and time spent by the birds in a spatial unit) was highest in July–September (45% of the hooks annually deployed). Just three fleets (Taiwanese, Japanese and Spanish) contributed to >98% of the overlap scores for each stage (72% from the Taiwanese fleet alone, on average). Daily overlap scores were higher for the non-breeding versus the breeding stages (3-fold factor on average). 4. Based on previous bycatch rates for other albatross species, this study estimated that longline fisheries currently have the potential to remove ~2–16 individuals (i.e. ~5%) each year from the total Amsterdam albatross population, depending on whether bycatch mitigation measures were or were not systematically employed during the fishing operations. 5. Recent bycatch mitigation measures may be instrumental in the conservation of the Amsterdam albatross. This study suggests three further key recommendations: (1) to focus conservation efforts on the austral winter; (2) to require all operating vessels to report ring recoveries; and (3) to allocate special regulation of fishing operations in the areas of peak bycatch risk for the Amsterdam albatrosses. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Value based concept has been accepted as a universal principle for the conservation of Cultural Heritage. Authenticity and integrity are two main issues protecting those values. Authenticity is the major tool in the value assessment and integrity plays an important role in the procedure of conservation plan. From the perspective of integrity, this research explores the principle of conservation plan and discusses its relation with the restoration plan and urban plan. A conservation plan in Quing-Lin village, Kinmen, will be taken as an example for implementation. The research shows that a conservation plan with integrity in mind helps to clarify the conservation target areas and their buffer zones. It also serves as a tool for developing control and risk management. Cultural mapping is an efficient tool for the communication with stakeholders in the process of the conservation plan.

Based on 120 stem discs collected during 3 months of fieldwork along a 12 km route, the history of fires in the Wari Maro Forest (09°10′0 N–02°10′0E) over the past century in savanna woodland and dry forest was reconstituted. Three major ecological areas are characterized: one highly burnt zone located between two relative less burnt areas. By analyzing tree rings, 246 fire scars were identified. The scars were caused by 51 fire years, occurring at a mean interval of 2.23 years. From 1890 to 1965, only 6 years with fires were recorded from sampled trees. Since 1966, no year has passed without fire. The fire frequency point scale reached 14 years. This was the case of Burkea africana, which has been identified as a species tolerant to fire and could be planted to create a natural firewall. In contrast, Anogeissus leiocarpa is highly sensitive to fire, and in a dry forest ecosystem that burns seasonally, it requires a special conservation plan. Two new concepts are described: the rebarking of trees after fire and Mean Kilometer Fire Interval. The first concept was tested with Daniellia oliveri (Rolfe) Hutch & Dalz trees, and the second concept was used to evaluate spatial fire distribution. We demonstrate that savanna woodland and dry forest were subject to a degradation process caused by destructive fires related to vegetation cover clearance and illegal logging.

Anthropogenic development has great potential to affect fragile desert environments. Large-scale development of renewable energy infrastructure is planned for many desert ecosystems. Development plans should account for anthropogenic effects to distributions and abundance of rare or sensitive wildlife; however, baseline data on abundance and distribution of such wildlife are often lacking. We surveyed for predatory birds in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts of southern California, USA, in an area designated for protection under the “Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan”, to determine how these birds are distributed across the landscape and how this distribution is affected by existing development. We developed species-specific models of resight probability to adjust estimates of abundance and density of each individual common species. Second, we developed combined-species models of resight probability for common and rare species so that we could make use of sparse data on the latter. We determined that many common species, such as red-tailed hawks, loggerhead shrikes, and especially common ravens, are associated with human development and likely subsidized by human activity. Species-specific and combined-species models of resight probability performed similarly, although the former model type provided higher quality information. Comparing abundance estimates with past surveys in the Mojave Desert suggests numbers of predatory birds associated with human development have increased while other sensitive species not associated with development have decreased. This approach gave us information beyond what we would have collected by focusing either on common or rare species, thus it provides a low-cost framework for others conducting surveys in similar desert environments outside of California.

This study is about the Type classification of architectural assets in Seosungro (one of the 4 Roads of Rampart in Junggu, Daegu), the main stronghold of Urban Regeneration projects according to the recent Urban Regeneration law. The purpose of this study is to suggest the basic data about Operation management method of Original Downtown modern buildings and valuable hanok, and Conservational Regeneration of Architectural property of Urban Environmental Improvement and Architectural assets. By researching, analysing the feature and classifying the type of the buildings in Seosungro, The type classified Conservation plan can be suggested. The Types of the Architectural assets will be the basic data of the application plan of modern buildings which is for the urban regeneration, and this can predict the quantity and the demand of the building for effective urban regeneration, and also can be an effective Urban regeneration policy data.

This paper aims to discuss the application of the notion of authenticity principle in the conservation work of De Javasche Bank building in Surabaya in term of form, materials and substance. This heritage building was built in 1910, and it has been unoccupied and dilapidated for decades, subsequently in 2010, the owner, Bank Indonesia began the conservation wok of the building. Data regarding form, materials and substance of the building were collected from field observation during the conservation work from 2011 to 2012, and collected from the Conservation Plan prepared in 2009. Based on the data, the principle of tangible authenticity is tested based upon scientific method to test material authenticity, and through a good knowledge of the typology of objects such as form of the building and elements of the building, materials and substance of the roof and floor tiles, plasters and paints, and the ornaments. The results show that to achieve the principle of authenticity in the conservation work, action taken should follow the ascending degrees of intervention dealing with preservation of the existing state and the original form, material and substance; consolidation of the fabric; restoration of the original building form; rehabilitation of all decay building elements; reproduction of the broken materials with replica such as floor tiles; reconstruction the missing section such as the original name of De Javasche Bank, and adaptation, as new elements such as new lighting systems, air condition, sound system were added to meet the adaptive reuse of the building as multi-purpose hall. In addition, to achieve the principle of authenticity in the conservation work, action taken should follow the principles namely the principle of minimum intervention preserving the original form, material and substance; recognizable as a new when introduce new materials and techniques; and the principle of reversible when in the future if all of the new elements will be detached they will not displace the original elements.

Treasured for its geographic significance and physical beauty, Pukch’on, the area between Kyŏngbok and Ch’angdŏk Palaces, has been the object of a conflict between conservation and development since the late-1970s. The government has sought to retain the area’s numerous hanok in their original form, while the owners have sought to develop their property according to their wishes. In the early 2000s, recognizing the failure of its past top-handed policy, the city of Seoul initiated a new conservation plan based on giving direct incentives to homeowners in return for maintaining their hanok . This paper examines the historical conflict focusing on the disparate understanding of heritage over the years, and analyzes the current turn in preservation strategy focusing on the rhetoric of “restoration.” In the process, this paper will attempt to illuminate assumptions about tradition and built heritage. Finally, it will examine how this rhetoric is represented in preservation policies and examine a few individual cases of Pukch’on hanok .

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) provided research funds to study the conservation genomics and landscape genomics of the Mojave desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, in response to the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). To do this, we consolidated tissue samples of the desert tortoise from across the species range within California and southern Nevada, generated a DNA dataset consisting of full genomes of 270 tortoises, and analyzed the way in which the environment of the desert tortoise has determined modern patterns of relatedness and genetic diversity across the landscape. Here we present the implications of these results for the conservation and landscape genomics of the desert tortoise. Our work strongly indicates that several well-defined genetic groups exist within the species, including a primary north-south genetic discontinuity at the Ivanpah Valley and another separating western from eastern Mojave samples. We also use existing desert tortoise habitat modeling data with a novel extension of genetic "resistance distance" using geographic maps of continuous space to predict the relative impacts of five proposed development alternatives within the DRECP and rank them with respect to their likely impacts on desert tortoise gene flow and connectivity in the Mojave. Finally, we analyzed the impacts of each of the 214 distinct proposed development area "chunks", derived from the proposed development polygons, and ranked each chunk in terms of its range-wide impacts on desert tortoise gene flow.

Considering that urban expansion and increase of human activities represent important threats to biodiversity and ecological processes in short and long term, developing protected area (PA) network with high connectivity is considered as a valuable conservation strategy. However, conservation planning associated with the large-scale network in China involves important information loopholes about the land cover and landscape connectivity. In this paper, we made an integrative analysis for the identification of conservation priority areas and least-cost ecological corridors (ECs) in order to promote a more representative, connected and efficient ecological PA network for this country. First, we used Zonation, a spatial prioritization software, to achieve a hierarchical mask and selected the top priority conservation areas. Second, we identified optimal linkages between two patches as corridors based on least-cost path algorithm. Finally, we proposed a new framework of China's PA network composed of conservation priority and ECs in consideration of high connectivity between areas. We observed that priority areas identified here cover 12.9% of the region, distributed mainly in mountainous and plateau areas, and only reflect a spatial mismatch of 19% with the current China's nature reserves locations. From the perspective of conservation, our result provide the need to consider new PA categories, specially located in the south (e.g., the middle-lower Yangtze River area, Nanling and Min-Zhe-Gan Mountains) and north regions (e.g., Changbai Mountains), in order to construct an optimal and connected national network in China. This information allows us better opportunities to identify the relative high-quality patches and draft the best conservation plan for the China's biodiversity in the long-term run.

Freshwater ecosystems are the most threatened ecosystems worldwide. Argentinian-protected areas have been established mainly to protect vertebrates and plants in terrestrial ecosystems. In order to create a comprehensive biodiverse conservation plan, it is crucial to integrate both aquatic and terrestrial systems and to include macroinvertebrates. Here, we address this topic by proposing priority areas of conservation including invertebrates, aquatic ecosystems, and their connectivity and land uses. Location: Northwest of Argentina. We modeled the ecological niches of different taxa of macroinvertebrates such as Coleoptera, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Megaloptera, Lepidoptera, Odonata, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, Acari, and Mollusca. Based on these models, we analyzed the contribution of currently established protected areas in the conservation of the aquatic biodiversity and we propose a spatial prioritization taking into account possible conflict regarding different land uses. Our analysis units were the real watersheds, to which were added longitudinal connectivity up and down the rivers. A total of 132 species were modeled in the priority area analyses. The analysis 1 showed that only an insignificant percentage of the macroinvertebrates distribution is within the protected areas in the North West of Argentina. The analyses 2 and 3 recovered similar values of protection for the macroinvertebrate species. The upper part of Bermejo, Salí-Dulce, San Francisco, and the Upper part of Juramento basins were identified as priority areas of conservation. The aquatic ecosystems need special protection and 10% or even as much as 17% of land conservation is insufficient for species of macroinvertebrates. In turn the protected areas need to combine the aquatic and terrestrial systems and need to include macroinvertebrates as a key group to sustain the biodiversity. In many cases, the land uses are in conflict with the conservation of biodiversity; however, it is possible to apply the connectivity of the watersheds and create multiple-use modules. Fil: Nieto Peñalver, María Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina Fil: Ovando, Ximena Maria Constanza. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; Brasil Fil: Loyola, Rafael. Universidade Federal de Goiás; Brasil Fil: Izquierdo, Andrea Elisa. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Instituto de Ecología Regional. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Instituto de Ecología Regional; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo; Argentina Fil: Romero, Vivian de Fátima. Fundación Miguel Lillo; Argentina Fil: Molineri, Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina Fil: Rodríguez, José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina Fil: Rueda Martin, Paola Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina Fil: Fernandez, Hugo Rafael. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo; Argentina Fil: Manzo, María Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo; Argentina Fil: Miranda, Maria Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucuman. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical. Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical; Argentina

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center (USACE-ERDC) Environmental Lab (EL) assisted USACE, Portland District (CENWP) in updating a CE-QUAL-W2 (W2) model of Lost Creek Lake based on a previous version of W2. The model was calibrated using data from calendar year (CY) 2001 validated with data from calendar years 2003 and 2010. One set of W2 parameters were successfully applied to all calendar year types (2001 is a dry year; 2003 is a normal year; and 2010 is a wet year). This model and the corresponding results from the study provided CENWP with more refined estimates of water temperatures so that more defendable water temperature targets can be discussed with the state of Oregon. This is extremely important because the Rogue and Applegate temperature Total Maximum Daily Loads and Rogue Spring Chinook Conservation Plan require the Corps to review the Rogue Basin Project operations to determine whether improvements can be achieved to downstream temperature for the benefit of endangered fish. In addition to modeling the basic calibration for three years, a modified version of W2 was used to create a predictive model to determine the best blending of the intake ports to meet the temperature targets.

https://doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2017v15iss1art8Quantitative population objectives are necessary to successfully achieve conservation goals of secure or robust wildlife populations. However, existing methods for setting quantitative population objectives commonly require extensive species-specific population viability data, which are often unavailable or are based on estimates of historical population sizes, which may no longer represent feasible objectives. Conservation practitioners require an alternative, science-based method for setting long-term quantitative population objectives. We reviewed conservation biology literature to develop a general conceptual framework that represents conservation biology principles and identifies key milestones a population would be expected to pass in the process of becoming a recovered or robust population. We then synthesized recent research to propose general hypotheses for the orders of magnitude at which most populations would be expected to reach each milestone. The framework is structured as a hierarchy of four population sizes, ranging from very small populations at increased risk of inbreeding depression and extirpation (< 1,000 adults) to large populations with minimized risk of extirpation (> 50,000 adults), along with additional modifiers describing steeply declining and resilient populations. We also discuss the temporal and geographic scales at which this framework should be applied. To illustrate the application of this framework to conservation planning, we outline our use of the framework to set long-term population objectives for a multi-species regional conservation plan, and discuss additional considerations in applying this framework to other systems. This general framework provides a transparent, science-based method by which conservation practitioners and stakeholders can agree on long-term population objectives of an appropriate magnitude, particularly when the alternative approaches are not feasible. With initial population objectives determined, long-term conservation planning and implementation can get underway, while further refinement of the objectives still remains possible as the population’s response to conservation effort is monitored and new data become available.

Conservation scientists increasingly recognize that incorporating human values into conservation planning increases the chances for success by garnering broader project acceptance. However, methods for defining quantitative targets for the spatial representation of human well-being priorities are less developed. In this study we employ an approach for identifying regionally important human values and establishing specific spatial targets for their representation based on stakeholder outreach. Our primary objective was to develop a spatially-explicit conservation plan that identifies the most efficient locations for conservation actions to meet ecological goals while sustaining or enhancing human well-being values within the coastal and nearshore areas of the western Lake Erie basin (WLEB). We conducted an optimization analysis using 26 features representing ecological and human well-being priorities (13 of each), and included seven cost layers. The influence that including human well-being had on project results was tested by running five scenarios and setting targets for human well-being at different levels in each scenario. The most important areas for conservation to achieve multiple goals are clustered along the coast, reflecting a concentration of existing or potentially restorable coastal wetlands, coastal landbird stopover habitat and terrestrial biodiversity, as well as important recreational activities. Inland important areas tended to cluster around trails and high quality inland landbird stopover habitat. Most concentrated areas of importance also are centered on lands that are already conserved, reflecting the lower costs and higher benefits of enlarging these conserved areas rather than conserving isolated, dispersed areas. Including human well-being features in the analysis only influenced the solution at the highest target levels.