Downloading and using Marxan is free.
In return, we request that all ideas are credited to their source and that all users see themselves as partners in our attempts to get funding for further software development. We require all users to inform us of any applications, funding and publications resulting from the use of Marxan. Please cite the following references and any other relevant papers from the Publications page:
Marxan key reference
Ball, I.R., H.P. Possingham, and M. Watts. 2009. Marxan and relatives: Software for spatial conservation prioritisation. Chapter 14: Pages 185-195 in Spatial conservation prioritisation: Quantitative methods and computational tools. Eds Moilanen, A., K.A. Wilson, and H.P. Possingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Marxan with Zones key reference
Watts, M.E, I.R. Ball, R.R. Stewart, C.J. Klein, K. Wilson, C. Steinback, R. Lourival, L. Kircher, H.P. Possingham. 2009. Marxan with Zones: software for optimal conservation based land- and sea-use zoning, Environmental Modelling & Software (2009), doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.06.005 Electronic Preprint pdf (367KB) Final Published Version Request Reprint
Zonae Cogito key reference
Segan, D.B., E.T. Game, M.E. Watts, R.R. Stewart, H.P. Possingham. 2011. An interoperable decision support tool for conservation planning. Environmental Modelling & Software, doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.08.002
Installation requirements
Size of install set: less than four megabytes for Marxan, less than three megabytes for Marxan with Zones.
Operating System: Any Microsoft operating system will suffice, even a really old one. As a rule of thumb, if a computer is powerful enough to process the GIS layers (using Arc9 or other GIS) used to build a Marxan dataset, then it will be more than adequate for running Marxan.
You may require a more powerful computer if you want to speed up the generation of many solutions with Marxan. It can take many hours or several days to produce a large number of solutions for a large Marxan dataset.
Download Marxan
Download Marxan with Zones
Download Zonae Cogito
Instructions for installing Zonae Cogito