McDonnell, M.Possingham, H.Ball, I.Cousins, E.2006-06-192006-06-192002Environmental Modeling and Assessment, 2002; 7(2 Special Issue SI):107-1141420-20261573-2967http://hdl.handle.net/2440/410The original publication is availiable at www.springerlink.comThe problem of designing spatially cohesive nature reserve systems that meet biodiversity objectives is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem. The multiobjective function minimises a combination of boundary length, area and failed representation of the biological attributes we are trying to conserve. The task is to reserve a subset of sites that best meet this objective. We use data on the distribution of habitats in the Northern Territory, Australia, to show how simulated annealing and a greedy heuristic algorithm can be used to generate good solutions to such large reserve design problems, and to compare the effectiveness of these methods.enreserve designsimulated annealingset covering problemspatialclusteringfragmentationoptimisation heuristicsmultiobjective optimisationJournal article002002059410.1023/A:10156497161110001758060000072-s2.0-003627420860286McDonnell, M. [0000-0002-7009-3869]