MPA Tools

MPA Tools: Open-Source Software Suite

Marine protected area planning and analysis software with spatial prioritization, risk assessment, and vulnerability mapping tools

What is MPA Tools?

MPA Tools is an open-source software suite developed by Marine Conservation Institute for marine protected area planning and analysis. It brings together over 20 conservation planning tools that support the design, evaluation, and monitoring of marine protected areas.

Key features of MPA Tools include:

• Spatial prioritization tools like Marxan that use optimization algorithms to identify efficient MPA network configurations.
• Risk assessment tools to model and map cumulative impact threats from activities like fishing and shipping.
• Habitat representation analyses to assess how well MPAs represent and protect key habitats.
• Connectivity modeling to ensure MPAs are appropriately spaced and connected.
• Climate vulnerability assessments to determine how resilient MPAs are to climate change effects.

MPA Tools integrates many best practices and state-of-the-art methods for systematic MPA planning and adaptive management over time. The open-source platform allows the conservation community to collectively advance MPA analytics capabilities to better support marine spatial planning globally.

MPA Tools Features

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