Reserve design
Marxan in the browser, on real ocean data
Biohotspot runs Marxan, the standard open-source tool for marine park planning, in the browser. Choose an area, press Run the options, and it tries protecting the area, leaving it open, or letting Marxan design the zones, at different targets, in about a minute. No install and no input files to prepare.
How it works
- 1Tap the sea or draw an area on the map, then press Plan this area to make it a zone.
- 2Biohotspot shows what lives in the zone, who uses it, what is already protected, and how far each habitat is from its protection target.
- 3Open Simulate and press Run the options. Each option is drawn on the map and scored: which habitat targets it meets and what it costs other users of the sea. You can also try your own option with a particular zone type or setting.
- 4Open Advise for the recommended option and why it beats the others, then save the scenario, share a link or export the PDF report.
What you get
Every option is kept as evidence and every step is recorded, so anyone can rerun the result. Nothing is recommended when no option does better than the existing reserves. The guide shows each step in a video.
The data behind it
More than 1,600 world map layers on habitats, biodiversity, pressures, ecosystem services and protection, the marine protected areas of Australia from CAPAD 2024, and the data your team adds to its own project area. The example project, Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia, has full local planning data. Every source is listed with its licence in the data catalogue.
From AI agents
Biohotspot's MCP server has a simulate tool that runs Marxan on the example project's planning data, so an AI agent can run options too. See QGIS, API and agents.
More of what Biohotspot does
- Gap analysis
Marine protected area gap analysis
Draw an area and Biohotspot lists the habitats inside it, how much of each, what is already protected, and how far each habitat is from its protection target, with the uses of the sea it overlaps and the data that is missing.
- Blue carbon
Blue carbon estimates for mangroves, tidal marsh and seagrass
Tap a spot on the Biohotspot map for the tonnes of carbon nearby: mangrove soil carbon (Sanderman et al. 2018), tidal marsh soil carbon (Maxwell et al. 2024) and a rough seagrass figure from the IPCC default of 108 tonnes per hectare.
- Data access
Marine and coastal data for QGIS, ArcGIS, Python and AI agents
One OGC API address serves every open Biohotspot vector layer to QGIS and ArcGIS with no sign-in; a REST API, a Python client and an MCP server with 12 tools give scripts and AI agents the same data, with a sign-in or a personal API key.