Map biodiversity and protected areas

Add data to your map

You’ll add publicly available layers from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World related to biodiversity and conservation and the borders of the countries of interest. Protected areas are designed to help conserve the earth’s biodiversity and guide measurements of progress toward protecting it. The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is updated by governments, nongovernment organizations, landowners, and communities and is the most comprehensive global database on terrestrial and marine protected areas.

  1. Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account or into ArcGIS Enterprise using a named user account.
    Note:

    If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.

  2. On the ribbon, click your username and choose My settings.
    My Settings tab
  3. On the General page, scroll down until you see Units. If necessary, choose Metric.

    Change map units to Metric.

    Setting your units to Metric ensures your calculations will be correct in later sections.

  4. On the ribbon, click the Map tab.
    Note:

    Depending on your organizational and user settings, you may have opened Map Viewer Classic. ArcGIS Online offers two map viewers for viewing, using, and creating maps. For more information on the map viewers available and which to use, please see this FAQ.

    This tutorial uses Map Viewer.

  5. If necessary, on the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Layers. In the Layers pane, click Add.

    Add layers.

    The search pane appears. You'll add data from ArcGIS Online which can be reused to answer the same question for a different continent or taxa. In the description of the items, you can see who is authoring these datasets.

  6. Click My Content and choose ArcGIS Online. In the search box, type Africa Countries and press Enter.
  7. In the list of results, locate the Africa Countries layer and click Add.

    Search for and add the Africa Countries layer.

    The layer is added to the map. The map zooms to the extent of the layer, which is the continent of Africa. This layer is a subset of the World Countries Generalized layer. A generalized layer has fewer vertices than the original one. With fewer vertices, the layer draws on the map faster, making it most suitable for visualization.

    Africa Countries layer

    The layer shows the borders of all countries, which you can click for more information. Each pop-up is configured to show information on the name of the country, its population, flag and links to more information. All this information is sourced from the attribute table of the layer.

  8. In the Add layer pane, search for and add the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer.

    Add the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer.

    The layer is added to the map. To perform calculations involving area at a global scale, you need a grid consistent everywhere in the world. This grid has been created using a width equal to one degree of longitude and variable length so all the cell areas measure approximately 776 km2. It appears stretched now because the data has been reprojected to the Web Mercator coordinate system for visualization. The layer shows rarity of birds. Rarity and richness are common measures of biodiversity.

    Species richness is a measure of the number of different species in each grid cell. To calculate global richness for birds, the Map of Life analysts used global species range maps and counted the number that overlapped in each cell.

    Species 1, Species 2, Species 3, and Species 4

    Species ranges diagram

    Calculating richness based on species ranges

    Overlaid species for richness calculation

    Species rarity reflects how geographically widespread the species found in each grid cell are, on average. To calculate species rarity, analysts first calculated each species' endemism values, which describe the proportion of a species' range that is represented by a single populated grid cell. Here, this calculation is simplified using the number of populated cells as the total range area.

    Endemism = cell area / range area

    Graphic 1: Species 1: 1 / 1 = 1; Graphic 2: Species 2: 1 / 2 = 0.5

    Species 1 and 2

    Graphic 3: Species 3: 1/3=0.33; Graphic 4: Species 4: 1/4=0.25

    Species 3 and 4

    They then calculated total endemism by summing the endemism values in each grid cell across all bird species.

    Total endemism = (cell area / range area 1) + (cell area / range area 2) + (cell area / range area 3) + (cell area / range area 4)

    Total endemism calculation by cell

    Total endemism calculation diagram

    To find the rarity of each grid cell, total endemism was divided by richness.

    Species rarity per cell = total endemism / species richness

    Species Rarity calculation by cell

    Species rarity calculation

    In this tutorial, you will use this method to calculate species rarity for birds in protected areas. To do this, the next thing you need to do is add a layer of protected areas, so you’ll change the search to all of ArcGIS Online.

  9. In the search pane, search and add the WDPA_Africa layer. If necessary, add the search term owner:Learn_ArcGIS.

    Search for WDPA_Africa layer.

  10. Click the back arrow to return to the Layers pane.
  11. For the Africa Countries and Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layers, click on the Visibility button to hide the layers.
  12. For WDPA Africa layer, click Options. Choose Zoom to.

    Zoom to WDPA Africa layer

    This layer shows a small subset of the World Database of Protected Areas extracted for the purpose of this tutorial. Protected areas are designed to conserve the earth’s biodiversity and allow humans to measure our progress in protecting it. The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is updated by governments, nongovernment organizations, landowners, and communities and is the most comprehensive global database on terrestrial and marine protected areas.

    Subset of the World Database of Protected Areas database

    The subset you’ll use is for the continent of Africa and was extracted in March 2020. Due to the size of the full WDPA layer, the subset will help you run your analysis quicker. For the complete and updated dataset, use the WDPA layer in ArcGIS Living Atlas.

Calculate protected area of each country

You have added all the relevant layers to describe the conservation efforts for areas with high bird rarity. Now, you’ll begin filtering the information to the top rarest bird areas and the extent of the study area, while calculating the area of each country.

The area of each country will be the base of all the following calculations to describe the conservation effort of each country. First, you’ll make sure you have a single record for each country. Because some countries have islands and other areas that aren’t contiguous (such as Alaska to the continental United States), they’re listed separately. Keep in mind that you are working with a generalized layer and therefore the calculations are not exact.

  1. In the Settings (light) toolbar, click Analysis.

    Perform analysis on the Africa Countries layer.

    The Analysis pane appears.

  2. In the Analysis pane, click Tools.
  3. Expand Manage data and choose Dissolve Boundaries.

    Dissolve Boundaries tool.

  4. For Input features, click on + Layers and choose Africa Countries.
  5. For Dissolve settings, enable Dissolve features with matching field values. For Fields to match, click on + Field, choose NAME and click Done. Make sure the Create multipart features option is enabled.

    Use the Dissolve Boundaries tool.

    In this dataset, countries with multiple related polygons are all shown under the parent country name. Allowing multipart features means you can have a single record with separate polygons, where necessary.

  6. Under Result layer, for Output name, type Dissolve Africa Countries. followed by your name or initials (for example Dissolve Africa Countries (your Name)).
    Note:

    You cannot create two layers in an ArcGIS organization with the same name. Adding your initials to a layer name ensures that other people in your organization can also complete this tutorial. Once a layer has been created, you can rename it in the map to remove your initials, which will not affect the name of the underlying data layer.

  7. Under Environment settings, make sure the Processing extent is set to Full extent and click Run.

    The tool takes a few minutes to run. The dissolved layer is added to the map.

    Result layer of the dissolve tool

  8. In the Layers pane, for Dissolve Africa Countries - DissolvedFeatures layer, click Options and click Rename.

    Rename layer

  9. Rename the layer to Dissolve Africa Countries and click OK.
  10. Click the Options button again and click Show table.

    The table opens. It contains the layer's attributes: additional information about the data on the map. Each row corresponds to a single country, while each column is a field that includes information on the name of the country and the area in square kilometers. This is the layer of country data that you’ll use from now on, so you’ll remove the Africa Countries layer.

    Note:

    If the area units of your layer are in square miles, you may not have changed your units in the first section. Perform steps 2 and 3 in the first section and rerun the Dissolve tool.

  11. In the Layers pane, for Africa Countries layer, click Options, and choose Remove.

    Remove the Africa Countries layer from the Layers pane.

    Next, you’ll need to know how much area of each country is protected. The WDPA layer you’re using is a small portion of the dataset that shows information only for Africa. On the Item Details page for the WDPA layer, note the different dates of creation and last update. This layer is updated monthly by the United Nations Environmental Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The subset version was created with the March 2020 version; you can check in the monthly updates if any protected areas from African countries have been updated.

  12. In the Settings toolbar, click Analysis and click Tools.
  13. Expand Manage Data, and click Dissolve Boundaries.
  14. In the Dissolve Boundaries pane, for Input features, click + Layer and choose WDPA_Africa layer.
  15. For Dissolve settings, enable Dissolve features with matching field values. Click + Field and choose NAME (in capital letters). Click Done.

    Set parameters for the Dissolve Boundaries tool.

    The NAME field refers to the country that the protected area is located in. The Name field refers to the name of the protected area or park.

  16. Change Output name to Dissolve_WDPA_Africa and add your initials to make the layer name unique in your organization. Make sure under Environment settings, the Processing extent is set to Full extent.

    Note:
    This tool takes 10 service credits to run. Alternatively, you can add the Dissolve_WDPA_Africa owner:Learn_ArcGIS layer to the map and continue your analysis at step 13.

  17. Click Run.

    The tool takes a few minutes. When it finishes, the dissolved layer is added to the map.

  18. In the Layers pane rename Dissolve WDPA Africa - DissolvedFeatures to Dissolve WDPA Africa and open its attribute table.

    The table opens. It contains the layer's attributes: additional information about the data on the map. Each row corresponds to a single country, while each column is a field that includes information on the name of the country and the protected area in square kilometers.

    Review the Dissolve WDPA table.

  19. Close the table.

Identify top bird diversity cells for each country

Next, you'll filter the biodiversity layer to show only cells with the highest bird rarity. Locating these areas will help you understand where areas with high biodiversity are. To filter the layer, you'll create a logical expression that shows which type of features to display based on attribute information. Then, you’ll use the Overlay tool to remove the rarity data for countries not on the African continent.

  1. In the Layers pane, except the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer hide the others using the Visibility button.
  2. Click on the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer to select it. In the Settings toolbar, click Filter.

    Open the layer filter tool.

  3. In the Filter pane, click Add expression.

    Add expression

  4. For Expression, in the first box chooseRarity: birds. For the second box, choose the operator is greater than.
  5. For the third box, type 80.

    Build the query Rarity - Birds is greater than 80.

    The finished expression reads Rarity: birds is greater than 80. This expression will only show cells that are at the top rank of bird rarity.

  6. Click Save.

    Result layer for the filter query Rarity: birds is greater than 80

    The data on the map is filtered. Only cells at the top ranks of bird rarity are shown. You have selected the top two quantile bins. Quantile bins are a division of the data into equal portions; the number of cells in each quantile is the same.

    Quantile creation diagram

    Left: An example dataset is shown. Center: Data is sorted into bins. Right: Data is assigned to a bin.

    The bird rarity data has been sorted into nine quantiles, so each represents 1/9, or 11.1 percent, of the data. While there may be far fewer species of mammals than birds, you can still compare low and high biodiversity for each group using these bins.

  7. In the Settings toolbar, click Analysis.
  8. Expand Manage data, and click Overlay Layers.

    The Overlay Layers tool combines two layers into a single layer.

  9. For Input layer, select Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns layer. For Overlay features, choose Dissolve Africa Countries. Make sure Intersect is selected for Overlay type.

    Enter parameters for the Overlay Layers tool.

    By choosing intersect, the features in the input that are overlapped with the overlay features are kept.

  10. Change the Output name parameter to Rarity_80_Birds_Africa and add your name or initials.
  11. Click Run.

    Intersected layer result map

    The tool may take a few minutes to run. When it finishes, the intersected layer is added to the map. The layer shows the bird rarity cells, as well as information about the country they overlap. In cases where cells cross country boundaries, the cells are split.

  12. Rename the layer to Rarity 80 Birds Africa.

Identify protected areas with top bird diversity cells for each country

To understand which areas with high rarity have already been protected, you’ll compare the WDPA layer to the rarity layer you created in the previous section.

  1. Zoom and pan your map until the entire continent of Africa is visible.
  2. Click the back arrow next to Overlay Analysis pane to go back to the Tools pane.
  3. Expand Manage Data, and click Overlay Layers.

    The tool requires a few parameters.

  4. For Input features, select Dissolve WDPA Africa and for Overlay features, select Rarity 80 Birds Africa.
  5. Change the Outname name parameter to Intersect_WDPA_Rarity_80_Birds_Africa and add your name or initials. Under Environment settings, for Processing extent, select Display extent.
  6. Click Run.

    Result map of protected areas with high rarity

    The tool may take a couple of minutes to run. When the analysis finishes, the intersected layer is added to the map. The layer shows the portions of WDPA that contain high bird rarity.

  7. In the Layers pane, rename the new layer to Intersect WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa.
  8. Turn on the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer.

    From a visual comparison, you can see that some of the cells showing high rarity for birds are already covered by protected area, but there are many that aren't. To calculate the amount of each cell that is protected, you'll use the Summarize Within tool.

  9. Navigate back to the Tools pane by clicking the back arrow next to the Overlay Layers pane.
  10. Expand Summarize Data, and choose Summarize Within.
  11. For Input features, choose Intersect WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa. Under Summary areas, for Summary polygon layer, choose Rarity 80 Birds Africa.

    Using the default setting for Add statistics from the layer to summarize ensures the total area of protected land inside each grid cell is added.

  12. Under Calculate statistics, for Group by field, choose NAME and check the box next to Include percentages of summarized features.

    The NAME attribute represents the country name. Using this parameter means that each cell will include an attribute showing what country it falls within. Checking the Include percentages of summarized features option calculates how much of the attribute value is inside each country.

  13. Name the result layer Summarize_WDPA_Rarity_80_Birds_Africa and click Run.

    Summarize protected area.

    In the result layer, the darker cells show where more land is conserved. The lighter cells show where areas with high species rarity don't have as much protection.

  14. Rename the layer to Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa.
  15. In the Layers pane, for the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer, click Options and click Show table.

    The attribute table for the layer opens. The Summarized Area in Square Kilometers column is what you're interested in—this is the attribute that shows how much protected area overlaps with each high-rarity cell.

  16. Click the Summarized Area in Square Kilometers cell and sort the values from highest to lowest using the arow icons beside the field name.

    Sort summarized area field by descending order.

    The table is resorted to show the highest values at the top. Many of the highest values appear to be in Namibia, followed by Ethiopia and Tanzania. If you click a row, the corresponding cell is selected on the map.

  17. Close the attribute table.
  18. On the Contents toolbar, click Save and open and choose Save.

    Save button

    The Save map window appears

  19. In the Save map window, enter the following:

    • For Title, type Species distribution pattern.
    • For Tags, type words that will help people find the map through searches. After each tag, press Enter.
    • For Summary, type A map of protected areas and species information on the rarity of birds in Africa.

    Save map window
  20. Click Save map.

Symbolize the results

Finally, you’ll edit the values of the purple shading to show which cells are 25, 50, and 75 percent protected. As a derivative of the Global terrestrial species richness and rarity patterns (0.25) layer, the Summarize_WDPA_Rarity_80_Birds_Africa layer consists of 776.78 km2 grid cells. So, for example, if the value of the Summarized area in Square Kilometers attribute is greater than 388 kilometers, the cell is more than 50 percent covered by protected area.

  1. In the Layers pane, click on the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer to select the layer.
  2. In the Settings toolbar, click Styles.
  3. In the Styles pane, for Counts and Amounts (Color), click Style options.
  4. Under Classify Data, set the following:

    • For Method, choose Equal Interval.
    • For Number of classes, type 4.

    Change the number of classes.

    Symbolized cells by percent covered in protected area

    The map changes to show the new values. With the new symbology, you can tell that most cells with high bird species rarity have less than half the area protected.

    When you have a range of values that have a critical midpoint, such as this data, you should use a diverging color scheme to emphasize the high and low values. The purple colors you're currently using are continuous, which places emphasis (dark shading) on only one side of the data range (mostly covered by protected area).

  5. For Symbol style, click on the color palette.

    Change symbology

    The Symbol style window appears.

  6. For Fill color, click on the color palette. Scroll down until you see the dark blue to red color ramp. Choose the color ramp and click Done.

    Blue-to-red color ramp

    The map changes to show the new color ramp.

  7. In the Style options pane, click Done twice.

    Explore the map. Cells that are 75 percent protected and higher are shown in dark blue, while cells that are less than 25 percent protected are shown in dark orange.

    Final map of percentage of protection

  8. Save the map.

You've found the cells with the highest rarity on the continent of Africa. You've also calculated the area inside each that's already been protected and symbolized them. Next, you'll use Arcade scripting to calculate the proportion of each country that's protected.


Calculate proportions with Arcade

You have performed the spatial analysis necessary to obtain the information for each country on how large the country is, how much area is protected, how much area has high rarity of birds, and how much protected area has high rarity of birds. Now, to do the calculations necessary to understand where rare species are best protected, you’ll write attribute expressions to calculate different proportions of interest for each country.

Build the first expression with the expression editor

To build these expressions, you’ll use Arcade, a derivative of JavaScript specific to ArcGIS. Arcade can be used to create a new field whose values will be calculated on the fly. The attribute expression allows you to use the information available in all the layers present in the web map, even if they are not visible. The first expression you build will calculate the proportion of the country that is registered as protected area.

  1. In the Layers pane, turn off all layers except the Dissolve Africa Countries layer.
  2. On the map, click one of the countries.

    Open a pop-up from the map.

    The pop-up that appears has some default information that you will customize.

  3. In the Layers pane, click on Dissolve Africa Countries layer. In the Settings pane, click Pop-ups.

    Open the Pop-ups pane.

  4. In the Pop-ups pane, click Attribute Expressions.

    Add an expression to the pop-up.

  5. Click Add expression.

    A window to create an attribute expression appears. The attribute expression is built in Arcade. The attribute expression allows you to use the information available in all the layers present in the web map, even if they are not visible.

  6. Rename the expression from New expression to Protected Proportion.

    This expression calculates the proportion of each country that is protected. First, you’ll define the WDPA variable.

  7. In the Expression editor, on line 4, type var wdpa =.

    Define the WDPA variable in your expression editor.

    To set the variable with the proper WDPA data, you’ll select the map layer.

  8. On the side panel, click on the expand icon.

    Expand the side panel

  9. Click on Profile variables.
  10. In the Profile variables pane, click on the arrow next to $map. Similarly click on the arrow next to Dissolve WDPA Africa.
  11. Under Dissolve WDPA Africa, click FeatureSetByName.

    Set the WDPA variable to the correct layer.

    Code is added to the script. The function FeatureSetByName() points to the web map as the first argument. The name of the layer is passed, and arguments are separated by commas inside a function. See FeatureSetByName for more information about this function. You will add two more arguments.

  12. After the second argument (the layer name in parentheses), add a comma and type ["NAME_1","AnalysisArea"].

    The expression now reads as follows:

    var wdpa = FeatureSetByName($map,"Dissolve_WDPA_Africa_INITIALS",["NAME_1","AnalysisArea"])

    Note:

    Your layer names will include your initials or name.

    These are the names of the two columns you need to link the layers and the data used in the next calculations. When including strings separated by commas inside square brackets, it is a list of strings. The last argument to include is a Boolean that indicates if the geometry of the feature is necessary. In this case, you only require the information from the attribute table, so set it to false.

  13. After the third argument, add a comma and type false.

    The first line of the code should read as follows:

    var wdpa = FeatureSetByName($map,"Dissolve_WDPA_Africa_INITIALS",["NAME_1","AnalysisArea"], false)

    The other variables you need are the name of the country, a filtering statement to link the layers using the country name, the filtered information, and the proportion of the country that is protected, which will be initiated at 0 percent.

  14. On lines 5–8, type or paste the following:
    var country_name = $feature.NAME
    var filterStatement = "NAME_1 = @country_name"
    var wdpa_ft_set  = Filter(wdpa, filterStatement)
    var prop_wdpa = 0

    The last line of the script is a conditional statement that will only run if the country has protected areas. If the country doesn’t have protected areas, the value returned will be 0.

  15. On lines 9–13, type or paste the if statement to calculate the proportion of each country that is protected.
    if(count(wdpa_ft_set)>0){
        var wdpa_first = First(wdpa_ft_set)
        var wdpa_area_km2 = wdpa_first['AnalysisArea']
        prop_wdpa = (wdpa_area_km2/$feature.AnalysisArea) *100
    }
    Note:
    If you get an error on the line of code if(count(wdpa_ft_set)>0){, you must change the symbol used for the greater than sign to a >.
  16. Finally, on line 14, add the statement return prop_wdpa, which will direct the script to return the value of proportion protected.

    The full script should be look like the following, except for the first line and the comments that have been added. Comments are indicated by a double slash:

    var wdpa = FeatureSetByName($map,"Dissolve_WDPA_Africa_INITIALS",["NAME_1","AnalysisArea"], false) //this variable requests the layer of protected areas that is loaded in the webmap, only the two columns of interest will be returned and the geometry will be omitted as it is not necessary
    var country_name = $feature.NAME //for each feature, which represents a country the name of the country will be stored in the variable country_name
    var filterStatement = "NAME_1 = @country_name" //NAME_1 refers to the field from the the wdpa layer we requested at the beginning of the script. It is possible to use the variable country_name in this statement by adding an @ as prefix
    var wdpa_ft_set  = Filter(wdpa, filterStatement) //The wdpa layer is going to be filtered by matching the fields of the name of the countries that were specified earlier.
    var prop_wdpa = 0 // this line initialises the variable prop_wdpa that will contain the proportion of protected area for a country.
    if(count(wdpa_ft_set)>0){ //this is the start of the conditional code. The code between curly brackets will only be executed if the condition count(wdpa_ft_set)>0 is true. In other words, the code will only be run if the number of features filtered (the number of protected areas the country has) is more than 0.
        var wdpa_first = First(wdpa_ft_set) // because we are working with a dissolved feature, there is only one feature of protected areas per country.
        var wdpa_area_km2 = wdpa_first['AnalysisArea'] // this variable stores the information on the protected area size
        prop_wdpa = (wdpa_area_km2/$feature.AnalysisArea) *100 // the variable prop_wdpa is updated with the division of the protected area size by the country size
    return prop_wdpa //the final result is the value of the proportion of protected area
    }
  17. Click Run. Once you're sure the expression matches the one above, click Done.

Create the second expression

You have built the first expression that provides information on the proportion of the country that is protected. You’ll add one more expression to calculate how much overlap there is between the protected areas and the areas with high rarity of birds. This last calculation will provide a protection score, like what you symbolized previously, as it is important to keep in mind the different resolutions of the rarity and the protection datasets. A simple overlay would provide a much higher protection of areas with high rarity than there is. Therefore, the calculations will consider protection of high rarity when more than 50 percent of the cell is protected.

  1. In the Attribute Expressions pane, click Add expressions.
  2. Name the expression High Rarity Protection Score.

    This expression will calculate the proportion of the cells with more than 50 percent protection of high-rarity birds.

  3. In the Expression editor, paste the following:
    var summ_fset = FeatureSetByName($map,"Summarize_WDPA_Rarity_80_Birds_Africa_INITIALS", ["NAME", "AnalysisArea", "SUM_Area_SquareKilometers"], false)
    var country_name = $feature.NAME 
    var filterStatement = "NAME = @country_name"
    var bird_rar_wdpa_ft_set  = Filter(summ_fset, filterStatement) 
    var sum_is_protected = 0
    for(var f in bird_rar_wdpa_ft_set){
        var f_prop = f.SUM_Area_SquareKilometers/f.AnalysisArea
        if (f_prop>=0.5){ // this statement will only take into account cells that have at least 50% of protection
            sum_is_protected +=  1
        }
    }
    var prot_score = sum_is_protected/count(bird_rar_wdpa_ft_set)
    return prot_score
    Note:
    If you get an error on the line of code if (f_prop>=0.5){, you must change the symbol used for the greater than sign to a > and then add an equals sign (=).
  4. Replace the Summarize_WDPA_Rarity_80_Birds_Africa_INITIALS placeholder with the name of your layer.
  5. Click Done.
  6. Navigate to the Pop-ups pane by clicking the back arrow next to Attribute expressions.
  7. Expand Title and delete the name of the layer so only the {NAME} attribute remains.

    Change the Pop-up Title.

  8. For Fields list, click on Options and click Delete.
  9. Click Add content and choose Text.

    Add text.

  10. In the text box type { and from the list that appears choose {expression/expr0}.

    Add a layer attribute to the pop-up display.

    The attribute {expression/expr0} is added to the window. Now, you’ll add explanatory text.

  11. After the {expression/expr0} attribute, type % of. Add a space, type { and choose NAME, and then type is designated as protected land.

    Using this syntax, each pop-up will display the result of the Arcade expression for each individual country followed by the percent indicator. For example, Tanzania’s pop-up would read 38.31% of Tanzania is designated as protected land.

  12. Press Enter to start a new line, and type or paste the following:

    The country has a protection score of {expression/expr1}%, the percentage of cells with high rarity of birds that are covered by more than 50 percent protected land.

    Completed list of attribute expressions.

  13. Click OK.

    Next you will limit the percentage numbers to two decimals.

  14. In the Settings pane, click Fields.
  15. Click on Protected Proportion. In the Formatting pane, for Significant digits, select 2 Decimal places and click Done.
  16. Similarly, change High Rarity Protection Score to 2 Decimal places.
  17. Click one of the countries to see the configured pop-up.

    Configured pop-up

    The title of the pop-up still shows the name of the layer, which is descriptive for analysis purposes, but too lengthy for the pop-up.

  18. Save the map.

Symbolize African countries

Finally, you'll symbolize the African countries layer so that you can show it and the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer together. In the last section, you colored the cells in the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer to show the percentage of the cell that was covered by protected land. To show these cells along with the pop-ups you just configured, you'll change the default blue of the country layer to only show border lines.

  1. In the Layers pane, click on the Dissolve Africa Countries layer. In the Settings pane, click Style.
  2. Under Pick a style, for Locations, click Style options.

    The Style options pane appears.

  3. For Symbol style, click on the color palette.

    Symbols color options

  4. For Fill color, choose No Color.

    No Color fill option

    The polygons showing each country will only be shown with a border outline. Before you save your edits, you'll change the outline color.

  5. For Outline color, choose a black color for the line.
  6. In the Style options pane, click Done twice to save your changes.

    Country outlines symbolized with a 3-pixel black line

  7. In the Layers pane, turn on the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer.

    This layer also has pop-ups, but they haven't been configured. You'll turn them off so you see your custom pop-up when clicking the map.

  8. Click on the Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa layer. In the Settings toolbar, click Pop-ups and use the toggle button to disable the pop-up for the layer.

    Remove the layer's pop-up from displaying on the map.

    Finally, notice that the cells are covering up the boundary lines you just symbolized. You'll reorder the layers so that the borders draw on top of the rarity cells.

  9. Point to the Dissolve Africa Countries layer and drag it to the top of the Layers pane above Summarize WDPA Rarity 80 Birds Africa.
  10. Save the map.

In this tutorial, you used data from ArcGIS Living Atlas to find areas that are most important to protect. Using the continent of Africa as an example, you calculated—for each country—the percent of protected land and the proportion of the cells that have a high rarity of bird species and have land that is over 50 percent protected.

Using the pop-ups, you now have a first picture of the current protection status of areas with high rarity of birds across Africa. Do any of the protection scores surprise you? You can investigate further on your own by focusing on those countries with high rarity but a low protection score and exploring the human activities taking place there. This analysis can be replicated for other places in the world. If you are interested in trying this analysis for your country, try using the World Countries layer and the full Protected Areas layer in ArcGIS Living Atlas. The Half-Earth Project mapping effort uses these and other spatial patterns of biodiversity to identify locations where greater protection of species habitat is needed. This project gives you an introduction to some of the considerations involved in this process. To find out more, visit the Half-Earth Project.

You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.