title: Spatially-Correlated Risk in Nature Reserve Site Selection.
abstract: Establishing nature reserves protects species from land cover conversion and the resulting loss of habitat. Even within a reserve, however, many factors such as fires and defoliating insects still threaten habitat and the survival of species. To address the risk to species survival after reserve establishment, reserve networks can be created that allow some redundancy of species coverage to maximize the expected number of species that survive in the presence of threats. In some regions, however, the threats to species within a reserve may be spatially correlated. As examples, fires, diseases, and pest infestations can spread from a starting point and threaten neighboring parcels' habitats, in addition to damage caused at the initial location. This paper develops a reserve site selection optimization framework that compares the optimal reserve networks in cases where risks do and do not reflect spatial correlation. By exploring the impact of spatially-correlated risk on reserve networks on a stylized landscape and on an Oregon landscape, this analysis demonstrates an appropriate and feasible method for incorporating such post-reserve establishment risks in the reserve site selection literature as an additional tool to be further developed for future conservation planning.
authors.affiliation: Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, 82072, United States of America.
authors.forename: Heidi J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Albers
authors.affiliation: GreenWood Resources, Portland, Oregon, 97201, United States of America.
authors.forename: Gwenlyn M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Busby
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Social and Political Sciences, Université Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hamaide
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 61801, United States of America.
authors.forename: Amy W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 55108, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Polasky
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological