Table 5 Article inclusion and exclusion criteria, summarised from the protocol [15] with practical considerations adopted during screening to increase clarity and consistency in the application of the criteria
Screening criteria | Relevant | Irrelevant | Practical clarifications |
|---|---|---|---|
Subject | Inclusive of all countries and marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms Studies published between 1983 and 2017 | Global-scale plans Studies published prior to 1983 | Studies conducted at continental or smaller scales were included |
Intervention | Systematic conservation planning: a process for locating and implementing conservation actions where: (a) the benefits of conservation actions are specified either as threshold amounts of natural features to be represented or as continuous functions with increasing amounts of features; and (b) the outputs are one or more optimal or near optimal sets of spatially-bounded conservation actions This means that plans will necessarily use existing (e.g. Marxan [17], C-Plan [20] and Zonation [19]) or custom-made (e.g. linear/non-linear programming, genetic algorithms) decision-support tools in the ‘spatial prioritisation’ stages | Studies relating to plans that have no explicitly stated (or quantifiable) biological conservation objectives Studies relating to plans that were solely expert-based approaches Studies that do not involve the use of computerised decision-support tools | Studies were included if they approximated the stages of systematic conservation planning in Fig. 1 (e.g. plans did not have to have been implemented), and involved stakeholder engagement, quantifiable conservation objectives, and a spatial prioritisation exercise |
Outcome | Studies measuring changes in the condition of one or more of the following forms of capitals: natural, financial, social, human and institutional (either quantitatively or qualitatively) Broad interpretation of outcomes to capture the breadth of intended and unintended outcomes and potential flow-on consequences for biodiversity conservationa | Outcomes that are not attributed to a systematic conservation planning process | Studies were included if they reported on changes in the condition of one or more types of capital, as a result of a systematic conservation planning. |
Comparator | Comparisons over time (continuous or interrupted time seriesb), and/or between control and intervention groups and/or sites | Studies that measure at a single point in time, with no comparison to another site | Opinion-based assessments were excluded |
Study design | Retrospective quantitative and qualitative experimental, quasi-experimental and non-experimental designs according to Margoluis et al. [82] | Theoretical studies, prospective models, or studies using only ex-post modelling to estimate business as usual versus future planning scenarios were excluded, as were studies based on researcher inference | Relevant study designs had to relate to the impact of a conservation action (e.g. baseline monitoring was not necessarily suitable) To distinguish gap analyses from impact evaluations, studies using measures of representativeness in a gap analysis scenario were excluded Opinions of the authors or unsubstantiated statements were treated as ‘researcher inference’ and excluded on study design |