{"id":2883592,"date":"2025-07-09T10:50:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=2883592"},"modified":"2025-08-04T07:26:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:26:00","slug":"biodiversity-conservation-hexagons","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/sustainable-development\/biodiversity-conservation-hexagons","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Global Biodiversity and Conservation Hexagons"},"author":7841,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[430212],"tags":[741031,43821],"industry":[],"product":[36581],"class_list":["post-2883592","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sustainable-development","tag-biodiversity","tag-conservation","product-arcgis-living-atlas"],"acf":{"authors":[{"ID":7841,"user_firstname":"Dan","user_lastname":"Pisut","nickname":"Dan Pisut","user_nicename":"dan-pisut","display_name":"Dan Pisut","user_email":"DPisut@esri.com","user_url":"https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com","user_registered":"2018-04-16 21:24:57","user_description":"Dan leads development of ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World environmental content, which includes information about Earth's land, ocean, atmosphere, and ecosystems. Prior to Esri, Dan worked at NOAA for two decades, leading data visualization efforts for research, communications, and education.","user_avatar":""},{"ID":6701,"user_firstname":"Keith","user_lastname":"VanGraafeiland","nickname":"Keith VanGraafeiland","user_nicename":"kvangraafeiland","display_name":"Keith VanGraafeiland","user_email":"KVanGraafeiland@esri.com","user_url":"https:\/\/oceans-esrioceans.hub.arcgis.com\/","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:18:44","user_description":"Keith VanGraafeiland is a Senior Principal GIS Engineer at Esri and Ocean Content Lead for the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. With over 18 years of experience, Keith specializes in marine and environmental GIS, remote sensing, and advanced data science. Keith\u2019s work bridges oceanography and data science, using machine learning and analytics to turn complex data into actionable insights for the GIS community.","user_avatar":""}],"short_description":"New Living Atlas multiscale hexagon layers support quick insights and reporting for biodiversity and conservation.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Achieving the conservation targets of 30×30<\/a> is an ambitious goal, and one that needs to be guided by data and stakeholder input. The Living Atlas is a great place to start that process with contributions from organizations like the U.N. World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Conservation International, and iNaturalist that can inform biodiversity and conservation planning.<\/p>\n

And now that process is a bit easier.<\/p>\n

Global Environmental Hexagons<\/h3>\n

Esri is applying a geographic approach to some key biodiversity and conservation data and information that were contributed to the Living Atlas by the GIS community.\u00a0 Over 20 of the datasets are now summarized into 55 fields using multiscale, nested H3 hexagons<\/a>. This StoryMap<\/a> provides some more detail on them.<\/p>\n

H3, developed by Uber, is a standard for mapping information, as it provides consistent and repeatable geographic units at multiple scales. Seven hexagons nest into the next largest level, and Esri processed 4 scale levels of summary information on these geographic units.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2883552,"id":2883552,"title":"HexZoom","filename":"HexZoom.gif","filesize":7795136,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/sustainable-development\/biodiversity-conservation-hexagons\/hexzoom","alt":"Animation showing zooming into the H3 levels","author":"7841","description":"","caption":"","name":"hexzoom","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2883592,"date":"2025-07-08 15:05:12","modified":"2025-08-04 14:13:43","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/gif","type":"image","subtype":"gif","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":740,"height":400,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom-213x200.gif","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","medium-width":464,"medium-height":251,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","medium_large-width":740,"medium_large-height":400,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","large-width":740,"large-height":400,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","1536x1536-width":740,"1536x1536-height":400,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","2048x2048-width":740,"2048x2048-height":400,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","card_image-width":740,"card_image-height":400,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/07\/HexZoom.gif","wide_image-width":740,"wide_image-height":400}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

The Global Hexagons for Biodiversity and Conservation<\/a> group layer provides data at levels 2-5, which range from ~87,000 to 250 sq km. What datasets were used for the summaries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
World Database of Protected Areas<\/a><\/td>\nSBTN Conservation Hotspots<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ocean Conservation Priorities<\/a><\/td>\nBiodiversity Hotspots<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Biodiversity Intactness<\/a><\/td>\nIUCN Red List<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
iNaturalist Observations<\/a><\/td>\nEsri Sentinel-2 Land Use\/Land Cover<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
World Seafloor Geomorphology<\/a><\/td>\nWorld Terrestrial Ecosystems<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Land Cover Vulnerability to Change 2050<\/a><\/td>\nTree Canopy Height<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Irrecoverable Carbon<\/a><\/td>\nAbove and Below Ground Carbon Biomass<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Terrain – Elevation, Slope, Roughness<\/a><\/td>\nGlobal Fishing Watch<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Global Forest Watch<\/a><\/td>\nWorldPop Population<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

In the attribute table you will notice that each field has a consistent name, alias, and long field description across the 4 levels. There\u2019s also a detailed pop-up.<\/p>\n

Biodiversity and Conservation is just the first theme in a series of feature-based analysis-ready summarization layers, and we\u2019d love to hear which other environmental themes would help support your work. Please also suggest improvements to this layer in the comments below.<\/p>\n

Using the Global Environmental Hexagons<\/h3>\n

We hope that these new layers can jumpstart your exploration, mapping, and analysis. Here\u2019s a few ideas about what you can do with them.<\/p>\n