problem: Conservation planning problem

Description

Create a systematic conservation planning problem. This function is used to specify the basic data used in a spatial prioritization problem: the spatial distribution of the planning units and their costs, as well as the features (e.g. species, ecosystems) that need to be conserved. After constructing this ConservationProblem-class object, it can be customized to meet specific goals using objectives, targets, constraints, and penalties. After building the problem, the solve function can be used to identify solutions.

Usage

# S4 method for Raster,Raster
problem(x, features, run_checks, ...)
# S4 method for Raster,ZonesRaster
problem(x, features, run_checks, ...)
# S4 method for Spatial,Raster
problem(x, features, cost_column, run_checks, ...)
# S4 method for Spatial,ZonesRaster
problem(x, features, cost_column, run_checks, ...)
# S4 method for Spatial,character
problem(x, features, cost_column, ...)
# S4 method for Spatial,ZonesCharacter
problem(x, features, cost_column, ...)
# S4 method for data.frame,character
problem(x, features, cost_column, ...)
# S4 method for data.frame,ZonesCharacter
problem(x, features, cost_column, ...)
# S4 method for data.frame,data.frame
problem(x, features, rij, cost_column, zones, ...)
# S4 method for numeric,data.frame
problem(x, features, rij_matrix, ...)
# S4 method for matrix,data.frame
problem(x, features, rij_matrix, ...)

Arguments

Raster-class, SpatialPolygonsDataFrame-class, SpatialLinesDataFrame-class, or data.frame object, numeric vector, or matrix specifying the planning units to use in the reserve design exercise and their corresponding cost. It may be desirable to exclude some planning units from the analysis, for example those outside the study area. To exclude planning units, set the cost for those raster cells to NA, or use the add_locked_out_constraint.

features

The correct argument for features depends on the input to x:

RasterLayer-class, Spatial-class

Raster-class object showing the distribution of conservation features. Missing values (i.e. NA values) can be used to indicate the absence of a feature in a particular cell instead of explicitly setting these cells to zero. Note that this argument type for features can only be used to specify data for problems involving a single zone.

RasterStack-class, RasterBrick-class Spatial-class

ZonesRaster object showing the distribution of conservation features in multiple zones. As above, missing values (i.e. NA values) can be used to indicate the absence of a feature in a particular cell instead of explicitly setting these cells to zero. Note that this argument type is explicitly designed for creating problems with spatial data that contain multiple zones.

Spatial, data.frame

character vector with column names that correspond to the abundance or occurrence of different features in each planning unit. Note that this argument type can only be used to create problems involving a single zone.

Spatial, data.frame

ZonesCharacter object with column names that correspond to the abundance or occurrence of different features in each planning unit in different zones. Note that this argument type is designed specifically for problems involving multiple zones.

Spatial, data.frame, numeric vector, matrix

data.frame object containing the names of the features. Note that if this type of argument is supplied to features then the argument rij or rij_matrix must also be supplied. This type of argument should follow the conventions used by Marxan, wherein each row corresponds to a different feature. It must also contain the following columns:

"id"

integer unique identifier for each feature These identifiers are used in the argument to rij.

"name"

character name for each feature.

"prop"

numeric relative target for each feature (optional).

"amount"

numeric absolute target for each feature (optional).

cost_column

character name or integer indicating the column(s) with the cost data. This argument must be supplied when the argument to x is a Spatial or data.frame object. This argument should contain the name of each column containing cost data for each management zone when creating problems with multiple zones. To create a problem with a single zone, then set the argument to cost_column as a single column name.

rij

data.frame containing information on the amount of each feature in each planning unit assuming each management zone. Similar to data.frame arguments for features, the data.frame objects must follow the conventions used by Marxan. Note that the "zone" column is not needed for problems involving a single management zone. Specifically, the argument should contain the following columns:

"pu": integer planning unit identifier.
"species": integer feature identifier.
"zone": integer zone identifier (optional for problems involving a single zone).
"amount": numeric amount of the feature in the planning unit.

rij_matrix

list of matrix or dgCMatrix-class objects specifying the amount of each feature (rows) within each planning unit (columns) for each zone. The list elements denote different zones, matrix rows denote features, and matrix columns denote planning units. For convenience, the argument to rij_matrix can be a single matrix or dgCMatrix-class when specifying a problem with a single management zone. This argument is only used when the argument to x is a numeric or matrix object.

zones

data.frame containing information on the zones. This argument is only used when argument to x and y are both data.frame objects and the problem being built contains multiple zones. Following conventions used in MarZone, this argument should contain the following columns: columns:

"id": integer zone identifier.
"name": character zone name.

run_checks

logical flag indicating whether checks should be run to ensure the integrity of the input data. These checks are run by default; however, for large data sets they may substantially increase run time. If it is taking a prohibitively long time to create the prioritization problem, it is suggested to try setting run_checks to FALSE.

...

not used.

Value

A ConservationProblem-class object containing the basic data used to build a prioritization problem.

Details

A reserve design exercise starts by dividing the study region into planning units (typically square or hexagonal cells) and, for each planning unit, assigning values that quantify socioeconomic cost and conservation benefit for a set of conservation features. The cost can be the acquisition cost of the land, the cost of management, the opportunity cost of foregone commercial activities (e.g. from logging or agriculture), or simply the area. The conservation features are typically species (e.g. Clouded Leopard) or habitats (e.g. mangroves or cloud forest). The benefit that each feature derives from a planning unit can take a variety of forms, but is typically either occupancy (i.e. presence or absence) or area of occurrence within each planning unit. Finally, in some types of reserve design models, representation targets must be set for each conservation feature, such as 20 extent of cloud forest or 10,000 km^2 of Clouded Leopard habitat (see targets).

The goal of the reserve design exercise is then to optimize the trade-off between conservation benefit and socioeconomic cost, i.e. to get the most benefit for your limited conservation funds. In general, the goal of an optimization problem is to minimize an objective function over a set of decision variables, subject to a series of constraints. The decision variables are what we control, usually there is one binary variable for each planning unit specifying whether or not to protect that unit (but other approaches are available, see decisions). The constraints can be thought of as rules that need to be followed, for example, that the reserve must stay within a certain budget or meet the representation targets.

Integer linear programming (ILP) is the subset of optimization algorithms used in this package to solve reserve design problems. The general form of an integer programming problem can be expressed in matrix notation using the following equation.

$Minimize c^{T} x subject to Ax \geq= o r \leq b$

Here, x is a vector of decision variables, c and b are vectors of known coefficients, and A is the constraint matrix. The final term specifies a series of structural constraints where relational operators for the constraint can be either $\geq, =, o r \leq$ the coefficients. For example, in the minimum set cover problem, c would be a vector of costs for each planning unit, b a vector of targets for each conservation feature, the relational operator would be $\geq$ for all features, and A would be the representation matrix with $A_{i j} = r_{i j}$ , the representation level of feature i in planning unit j.

Please note that this function internally computes the amount of each feature in each planning unit when this data is not supplied (using the rij_matrix parameter). As a consequence, it can take a while to initialize large-scale conservation planning problems that involve millions of planning units.

Examples

Run this code

# NOT RUN {
# load data
data(sim_pu_raster, sim_pu_polygons, sim_pu_lines, sim_pu_points,
     sim_features)

# create problem using raster planning unit data
p1 <- problem(sim_pu_raster, sim_features) %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# create problem using polygon planning unit data
p2 <- problem(sim_pu_polygons, sim_features, "cost") %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# create problem using line planning unit data
p3 <- problem(sim_pu_lines, sim_features, "cost") %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# create problem using point planning unit data
p4 <- problem(sim_pu_points, sim_features, "cost") %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# add columns to polygon planning unit data representing the abundance
# of species inside them
sim_pu_polygons$spp_1 <- rpois(length(sim_pu_polygons), 5)
sim_pu_polygons$spp_2 <- rpois(length(sim_pu_polygons), 8)
sim_pu_polygons$spp_3 <- rpois(length(sim_pu_polygons), 2)

# create problem using pre-processed data when feature abundances are
# stored in the columns of an attribute table for a spatial vector data set
p5 <- problem(sim_pu_polygons, features = c("spp_1", "spp_2", "spp_3"),
              "cost") %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# alternatively one can supply pre-processed aspatial data
costs <- sim_pu_polygons$cost
features <- data.frame(id = seq_len(nlayers(sim_features)),
                       name = names(sim_features))
rij_mat <- rij_matrix(sim_pu_polygons, sim_features)
p6 <- problem(costs, features, rij_matrix = rij_mat) %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_relative_targets(0.2) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()

# }
# NOT RUN {
# solve problems
s1 <- solve(p1)
s2 <- solve(p2)
s3 <- solve(p3)
s4 <- solve(p4)
s5 <- solve(p5)
s6 <- solve(p6)

# plot solutions for problems associated with spatial data
par(mfrow = c(3, 2), mar = c(0, 0, 4.1, 0))
plot(s1, main = "raster data", axes = FALSE, box = FALSE)

plot(s2, main = "polygon data")
plot(s2[s2$solution_1 == 1, ], col = "darkgreen", add = TRUE)

plot(s3, main = "line data")
lines(s3[s3$solution_1 == 1, ], col = "darkgreen", lwd = 2)

plot(s4, main = "point data", pch = 19)
points(s4[s4$solution_1 == 1, ], col = "darkgreen", cex = 2, pch = 19)

plot(s5, main = "preprocessed data", pch = 19)
plot(s5[s5$solution_1 == 1, ], col = "darkgreen", add = TRUE)

# show solutions for problems associated with aspatial data
str(s6)
# }
# NOT RUN {
# create some problems with multiple zones

# first, create a matrix containing the targets for multi-zone problems
# here each row corresponds to a different feature, each
# column corresponds to a different zone, and values correspond
# to the total (absolute) amount of a given feature that needs to be secured
# in a given zone
targets <- matrix(rpois(15, 1),
                  nrow = number_of_features(sim_features_zones),
                  ncol = number_of_zones(sim_features_zones),
                  dimnames = list(feature_names(sim_features_zones),
                                  zone_names(sim_features_zones)))

# print targets
print(targets)

# create a multi-zone problem with raster data
p6 <- problem(sim_pu_zones_stack, sim_features_zones) %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_absolute_targets(targets) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()
# }
# NOT RUN {
# solve problem
s6 <- solve(p6)

# plot solution
# here, each layer/panel corresponds to a different zone and pixel values
# indicate if a given planning unit has been allocated to a given zone
par(mfrow = c(1, 1))
plot(s6, main = c("zone 1", "zone 2", "zone 3"), axes = FALSE, box = FALSE)

# alternatively, the category_layer function can be used to create
# a new raster object containing the zone ids for each planning unit
# in the solution (note this only works for problems with binary decisions)
par(mfrow = c(1, 1))
plot(category_layer(s6), axes = FALSE, box = FALSE)
# }
# NOT RUN {
# create a multi-zone problem with polygon data
p7 <- problem(sim_pu_zones_polygons, sim_features_zones,
              cost_column = c("cost_1", "cost_2", "cost_3")) %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_absolute_targets(targets) %>%
      add_binary_decisions()
# }
# NOT RUN {
# solve problem
s7 <- solve(p7)

# create column containing the zone id for which each planning unit was
# allocated to in the solution
s7$solution <- category_vector(s7@data[, c("solution_1_zone_1",
                                           "solution_1_zone_2",
                                           "solution_1_zone_3")])
s7$solution <- factor(s7$solution)

# plot solution
spplot(s7, zcol = "solution", main = "solution", axes = FALSE, box = FALSE)
# }
# NOT RUN {
# create a multi-zone problem with polygon planning unit data
# and where fields (columns) in the attribute table correspond
# to feature abundances

# first fields need to be added to the planning unit data
# which indicate the amount of each feature in each zone
# to do this, the fields will be populated with random counts
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp1_z1 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp2_z1 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp3_z1 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp1_z2 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp2_z2 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)
sim_pu_zones_polygons$spp3_z2 <- rpois(nrow(sim_pu_zones_polygons), 1)

# create problem with polygon planning unit data and use field names
# to indicate feature data
# additionally, to make this example slightly more interesting,
# the problem will have proportion-type decisions such that
# a proportion of each planning unit can be allocated to each of the
# two management zones
p8 <- problem(sim_pu_zones_polygons,
              zones(c("spp1_z1", "spp2_z1", "spp3_z1"),
                    c("spp1_z2", "spp2_z2", "spp3_z2"),
                    zone_names = c("z1", "z2")),
              cost_column = c("cost_1", "cost_2")) %>%
      add_min_set_objective() %>%
      add_absolute_targets(targets[1:3, 1:2]) %>%
      add_proportion_decisions()
# }
# NOT RUN {
# solve problem
s8 <- solve(p8)

# plot solution
spplot(s8, zcol = c("solution_1_z1", "solution_1_z2"), main = "solution",
       axes = FALSE, box = FALSE)
# }

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