• Home
  • About
  • Data & Tools
  • Learning
  • In Action
  • Resources
  • Contact

Prioritization Tool

Prioritization Tool

Interactive planning for conservation and restoration.

  • Access Tool

    Access the Prioritization Tool

  • Quick start guide

    A downloadable PDF that provides an overview of the Prioritization Tool

Quick start guide

Description
Intended uses
Get started
Background
Known limitations
Description

The Prioritization Tool is a web application for identifying the best opportunities to restore rare and threatened habitats for SGCN and other species in the northeast. The goal underlying the development of the restoration tool was to identify areas of degraded habitat having high restoration potential, which if restored would contribute to the network of connected, intact, and resilient sites for biodiversity conservation mapped by Nature’s Network.  The tool allows users to (1) display a series of prioritization maps developed for a set of pre-defined “scenarios” (e.g., American woodcock), and (2) create their own scenarios using a catalog of nearly 400 metrics.

The basic unit of analysis is the HUC12 watershed, although stream reach catchments are available for smaller geographies. Output datasets from the other Nature’s Network work groups, as well as datasets collected from various other partners, are used to determine which HUC12s rank highest for a given scenario.  Users can download a spreadsheet or PDF file that summarizes each result.

Intended uses
  • Identify opportunity-rich watersheds for various scenarios
  • Supplement local level planning tools by offering a broader, regional context
  • Justify and guide actions for restoring or protecting land in the Northeast.  
Get started
Access the Prioritization Tool here.

 

From here, access the prioritization tool by clicking “Data & Tools” in the menu bar at the top of the screen.  Next, select “Prioritization Tool”.  Finally, select “Access Prioritization Tool.”

Once you have opened the Prioritization Tool, you can either explore on your own, or follow the guided tour. If you choose to explore on your own, here is a quick introduction for how to use the tool:

Zoom in to an area you are familiar with. To do this, you can use your mouse wheel, use the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons, or type and address or place name in the bar at the top left of the map.  Select the “imagery” thumbnail at the bottom left to toggle the base layer.  Select “Create new model” from the right-hand panel to begin developing a prioritization scenario.

Under “1. Select geography”, there are four categories to choose from: regions, states, watersheds, and species ranges. For each general category, there are specific geographic regions available to select in the menu directly below the buttons. In some cases, you may select multiple geographies, with states or watersheds, for example.

Next, under “2. Select planning unit”, you may choose to analyze HUC12 or catchment boundaries. HUC12 boundaries are available for all geographic regions. Catchments, however, are only available for smaller areas, such as HUC6 watersheds.

“3. Select metrics” offers four categories of metrics: ecological, species, land use, and conservation.  You may select as many metrics to include in your model as you wish.

For each metric you select, you will notice one box added under the “4. Specify weights” section. In each box, there is the following: (a) metric label; (b) circular red icon with an “i” that can be selected to show additional information about the metric; (c) a toggle switch that allows you to make the weighting positive or negative; (d) a weighting box to type a number between 1 and 10; and (e) a button that allows you to remove the metric from the model.

When you are satisfied with your model, click “Get result” to produce your prioritization map. HUC12 analysis typically takes 10-20 seconds, while catchment analysis typically takes 30-60 seconds.

Once your map appears, you may use the vertical slider marked “Display by percentile rank” to select and view subsets of your results.  Click on “Models” to see information about your very first custom model.  You may generate more models by returning to “3.Select metrics”, then “4. Specify weight(s)”.  You may add or remove new metrics and get new results.  Please create another model.

Now scroll to view “Custom model 1” and “Custom model 2”, here you may select which side of the map viewer will display results, and you may download results.  You also have the option to use your mouse to slide the vertical line dividing the viewer.  This allows you to swipe away the top most of your results to view the results beneath. (Note: It is recommended that you rest the percentile rank option to show 0-100.)  Please compare your results.

Click on an individual HUC12. You will notice that the “Results” section of the control panel will open and display a table of information related to the metric(s) you indicated. You are now ready to explore on your own!

Background

In order to effectively prioritize watersheds for conservation and restoration opportunities, the tool uses the best available regional datasets, collected from other Nature’s Network work groups and contributing partners.  Each of these datasets is broken down into one or more metrics. For example, a land cover dataset is separated into its component classes (e.g., vegetation, impervious surface), with each class serving as an individual metric.  Each metric is summarized by the unit of analysis, the HUC12 watershed and the summaries are standardized on a common scale so that metrics with different units can still be compared.  As a result, any number of available metrics can be combined to create customized prioritization scenarios.

To provide a starting point to users of the tool, expert groups were convened to select a subset of metrics and associated weights for predefined restoration scenarios.  These expert scenario maps will be displayed on the Prioritization Tool for users to examine and adjust.

Known limitations
With nearly 400 metrics for analysis, the Restoration Tool can be overwhelming for first time users.  To ensure results are developed and interpreted properly, documentation is provided for every metric when possible.  The number of expert scenarios is also limited; in the future, additional expert scenarios will be incorporated into the tool.
Nature's Network Conservation Design
Imperiled Species
Terrestrial and Wetland Core-Connector Network
Aquatic Core Networks
Regional Connectivity and Marsh Migration
Prioritization Tool

Photos courtesy: USFWS, Nicholas A. Tonelli

  • Home
  • About
  • Data & Tools
  • Learning
  • In Action
  • Resources
  • Contact

Welcome to the Nature's Network Prioritization Tool

Using this tool, you can create custom models based on a catalog of over 400 metrics that will help address particular conservation and restoration questions. Some key features:

  • Quickly create custom prioritization maps
  • PDF and CSV outputs
  • Over 400 metrics

Metric description

Name:

Description:

Unit:

Full documentation link:

How does this work?

Load a model

What do these weights mean?

Each weight is a multiplier

When deciding how to assign weights, it is important to understand that each weight is a multiplier for its coresponding metric. After the tool standardizes the raw units of a metric to a quantile scale (0-1), it then multiplies that new value by the given weight. Any negative weight is flipped to a positive number and multiplied by the inverse of the metric's quantile score (this is to ensure a positive weighted score that is more intuitive for comparison). For more information, click "How does this work?" in the first panel above.

Caution

Use this control with a single map

This control limits the display of both the left and right maps. However, because the maps share the same legend, it can be difficult to distinguish them when parts of each are transparent. To avoid confusion, we recommend that this subset control be used when displaying a single map.

May not be useful for datasets with a small range or limited sample size

Each rank represents the percent of planning units less than or equal to this rank. As a result, for datasets with very small range (e.g. count of restoration practices in a single year) or limited sample size, there may be many planning units that share the same value (e.g., 0). In some of those cases, the minimum percentile rank could be relatively high and the subset controls may not seem to have an effect. If this appears to be happening, try clicking on a planning unit with a low score color to see what its percentile rank is.

Metric list