Recovery Prioritization Explorer
How many more species could be recovered with a 10% budget increase?
What would be the impact on species or regions of budget reductions?
How does the allocation of money among regions and taxa affect overall recovery efforts?
These and other similar questions prompted the development of this decision-support tool by the SESYNC Endangered Species Act Decision Support Venture, a collaboration of CBO, USFWS, and academic partners. The tool has two primary purposes:
1. Communicate Expected Recovery Outcomes of National Budgets
The USFWS expressed a need to quickly summarize the expected outcomes of alternative budget proposals. On the National Summary tab, you can explore expected outcomes given a budget target (percent increase or decrease in the annual national recovery budget) or species target (number of species to be set on path to recovery). You have the option of printing your results as a one-page summary report to support budget negotiations.
2. Support Discussion of Recovery Priorities and Budget Allocations
Once a national budget has been set (1113 Budget tab), there are many ways this money could be allocated among Recovery Plans. The USFWS expressed a need to better understand the expected long-term recovery outcomes of alternative plan prioritization and budget allocation scenarios. Using information from the Recovery Plans and the Recovery Online Activity Reporting (ROAR) database the tool allows side-by-side comparison of alternative scenarios (Compare Scenarios tab), investigation of uncertainty in model predictions (Uncertainty Simulations tab), and direct access to the underlying data (Data and Definitions tab). The Action Quadrant tab supplements the discussion of USFWS budgets by illustrating how differences among plans point to opportunities for research, partnership, and outreach.
Total 1113 Budget Allocation
Enter the expected 1113 budget and then allocate that budget among the five primary recovery activities.
Expected 1113 Budget
Allocation Summary
Congressional and Service Required Work
Five Year Reviews
Recovery Planning
Down-listing and Delisting
Implementation
National Summary Report
- View expected recovery outcome given budget.
- Explore impacts of percent change in budget.
- Identify budget required to achieve target number of species recovered.
Current Estimated Annual Budget for Recovery Actions
Default is the value set on the 1113 tab.
Select a tab to set a budget or species target:
To explore the data behind this conclusion, view the Data & Definitions tab. To compare alternative budgets and prioritization strategies, view the Compare Scenarios tab.
To explore the data behind this conclusion, view the Data & Definitions tab. To compare alternative budgets and prioritization strategies, view the Compare Scenarios tab.
Species included (green) and excluded (grey) as budget and number of completed plans increases.
Cost distribution to complete all actions in a plan (some plans have many species).
Costs range from $1,973 to $20,395,753,569 in this set of 545 plans. The figure above shows plans in the lower 90th percentile of costs (plans less than or equal to $48,724,529).The table below lists the next most cost-efficient plans excluded under the proposed target.
Background Data and Definitions
- View overall distribution of opportunity, needs, and costs across regions and taxa.
- View distribution of opportunity, needs, and costs among plans.
- Search for definitions in the project dictionary.
On some scales (Cost, Benefit, and Success) there are multiple extreme outliers. To better view the differences among regions (or taxa), you can adjust the x-axis maximum value.
The median cost to complete all actions in a Recovery Plan is $992,867 (dark red line).
The median benefit of completing all actions in a Recovery Plan is 0.66(dark red line).
The median feasibility of success of all actions in a Recovery Plan is 1(light blue line).
The median taxonomic weight of all actions in a Recovery Plan is 0.67(light blue line).
Definitions of input variables:
Definitions of output cost effectiveness scores:
N.B.: The cost effectiveness scores are in units of standard deviations. Positive numbers are the number of standard deviations above the mean; negative numbers are the number of standard deviations below the mean.
Compare Scenarios
- Compare outcomes of alternative decisions.
- Explore alternative budgets.
- Select factors to include or exclude from prioritization.
- Select whether to apply prioritization at national, regional, or taxa level.
Scenario A
Default is the value set on the 1113 tab.
Scenario B
Default is the value set on the 1113 tab.
Number of Plans Included
Number of Species Included
Total Benefit of Included Plans
Total Feasibility of Success of Included Plans
Total Taxonomic Weight of Included Plans
Total Cost of Included Plans
Number of Plans Included by Region
Number of Species Included by Region
Total Cost by Region
Opportunities for Outreach, Research, and Conservation Partnerships
Explore how the distribution of plan costs and expected outcomes present different opportunities.
The vertical and horizontal thresholds define quadrats (figure below) with different information value. They could define boundaries for action versus inaction, but could also highlight opportunities to pursue distinct actions. For example, low cost projects might offer an opportunity to involve smaller partners. High benefit projects might offer opportunties for synergy with other programs. High success projects might be well-suited to outreach and engagement activities, whereas high cost and low success projects are good candidates for research programmes to increase effectiveness. Set thresholds and display options below to view graphical and tabular summaries of the Recovery Plans by quadrant
Set thresholds
Optional display features
Sensitivity Analysis of Cost, Benefit, and Success Data
Explore and compare how uncertainty about the input data influence the decision tool results. View outcomes as:
If you used these data to predict an outcome from a budget change, how confident could you be in your predctions?
Compare graphs across a row to observe the affect of low, moderate, and high uncertainty applied to a set of variables. Compare graphs down a column to observe the affect of applying uncertainty to different combinations of variables. Consider the questions:
- Does the level of uncertainty influence the expectation regarding the how many more (or less) species can be conserved under a budget increase (or decrease)?
- Does the uncertainty in any one variable have a greater influence on the expectations regarding the number of species conserved than other variables?
If you used these data to predict an outcome from a budget change, how confident could you be in your predctions?
Compare graphs across a row to observe the affect of low, moderate, and high uncertainty applied to a set of variables. Compare graphs down a column to observe the affect of applying uncertainty to different combinations of variables. Consider the questions:
- Does the level of uncertainty influence the expectation regarding how much value is gained (or lost) from my conservation portfolio under a budget increase (or decrease)?
- Does the uncertainty in any one variable have a much greater influence on my expectations regarding portfolio performance than other variables?
If you must make decisions under uncertainty, can you distinguish safe bets from risky ventures?
Consider the questions:
- Which species, despite uncertainty, are always included in (or excluded from) the portfolio?
Cost (Co) uncertainty draws values from a normal distribution where the mean is the estimated cost and the standard deviation at each level is:
- HIGH (sd=mean x 0.20)
- MEDIUM (sd=mean x 0.1)
- LOW (sd=mean x 0.05)
Benefit (B) and Success (S) uncertainty draw values from a beta distribution where the variance at each level is:
- HIGH (variance = 0.01)
- MEDIUM (variance = 0.005)
- LOW (variance = 0.001)
Six sets of simulations apply uncertainty to different components of the cost efficiency calculation. Abbreviations above the graphs indicate which simulation set the data represent:
- Benefit, Success, and Cost (BSCo)
- Benefit and Success only (BS)
- Benefit and Cost only (BCo)
- Success and Cost only (SCo)
- Benefit only (B)
- Success only (S)
- Cost only (Co)