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Get Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) from WDPA

Source: R/splnr_get_MPAs.R
splnr_get_MPAs.Rd

This function serves as a wrapper for the wdpar package, facilitating the retrieval of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and intersecting them with provided planning units. The result is an sf object indicating the area of planning units covered by the selected marine protected areas.

Usage

splnr_get_MPAs(
  PlanUnits,
  Countries,
  Status = c("Designated", "Established", "Inscribed"),
  Desig = c("National", "Regional", "International", "Not Applicable"),
  Category = c("Ia", "Ib", "II", "III", "IV"),
  ...
)

Arguments

PlanUnits

An sf object representing the planning units to be used for intersection. This object should have a valid CRS defined.

Countries

A character vector specifying the countries for which to extract MPAs. To retrieve all global MPAs, use the value "global". Country names should match those recognized by the WDPA database.

Status

A character vector specifying the desired status of protected areas to include. Defaults to c("Designated", "Established", "Inscribed").

Desig

A character vector specifying the desired designation types of protected areas. Defaults to c("National", "Regional", "International", "Not Applicable").

Category

A character vector specifying the desired IUCN Protected Area Management Categories. Defaults to c("Ia", "Ib", "II", "III", "IV").

...

Other arguments that are passed directly to the wdpa_fetch() function from the wdpar package (e.g., verbose = TRUE).

Value

An sf object. This object contains the planning units, with an additional wdpa column (set to 1) for areas that intersect with the selected MPAs.

Details

This function leverages the robust capabilities of the wdpar package by Jeffrey O. Hanson to access and process WDPA data. It allows filtering of MPAs based on country, status, designation type, and IUCN category, and then spatially intersects these MPAs with your defined planning units.

For a comprehensive understanding of the WDPA data fields:

  • Status: Refers to the establishment, designation, or proposal status of a protected area at the time of data submission. Valid options include "Designated", "Established", "Inscribed", "Proposed", and "Adopted".

  • Desig (Designation Type): Categorizes the legal or official designation of the protected area. Valid options include "National", "Regional", "International", and "Not Applicable".

  • Category (IUCN Protected Area Management Categories): Represents the IUCN management categories for protected areas. Valid options include "Ia", "Ib", "II", "III", "IV", "V", "VI", "Not Reported", "Not Applicable", and "Not Assigned".

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Assuming 'dat_PUs' is an existing sf object of planning units in your package.

# Example: Get MPAs for Australia and intersect with planning units.
dat_mpas <- splnr_get_MPAs(PlanUnits = dat_PUs, Countries = "Australia")

# Example: Get MPAs for multiple countries with specific status and categories.
dat_mpas_specific <- splnr_get_MPAs(
  PlanUnits = dat_PUs,
  Countries = c("Australia", "New Zealand"),
  Status = c("Designated", "Proposed"),
  Category = c("II", "IV")
)

# Example: Visualize the result using ggplot2.
# Assuming 'aust' is an sf object representing Australia's coastline,
# perhaps loaded from rnaturalearth::ne_countries.
aust <- rnaturalearth::ne_countries(country = "Australia", returnclass = "sf")

gg <- ggplot2::ggplot() +
  ggplot2::geom_sf(data = dat_mpas, ggplot2::aes(fill = wdpa)) +
  ggplot2::geom_sf(data = aust, fill = "grey50") +
  ggplot2::labs(title = "Marine Protected Areas in Australia") +
  ggplot2::theme_minimal()
print(gg)
} # }