Balancing wetland conservation under disease risk in Indonesia: A spatial MCDA approach

Abstract. Wetlands provide essential ecosystem services but can also serve as breeding habitats for disease vectors such as mosquitoes, creating complex challenges for conservation planning. Indonesia has extensive wetlands and high malaria incidence, requiring conservation strategies that integrate both ecological and health considerations. This study implements a spatial Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) framework to support wetland conservation planning by integrating ecological benefits and vector-borne disease risk. The analysis integrated eight criteria using literature-informed weighting across 94.6 % of Indonesia's wetland areas. Results reveal that conservation and health factors operate largely independently (r = 0.099, p < 0.001), suggesting minimal trade-offs between objectives. The findings demonstrate that wetland conservation and health objectives are compatible in most regions, enabling strategies that optimize ecological outcomes without systematically increasing disease exposure. Papua is noted as a region of interest, being the main region where high ecological value does coincide with elevated disease risk. The framework supports conceptualizing wetlands as Nature-based Solutions that simultaneously deliver conservation and public health benefits, providing practical guidance for Indonesian policymakers and a replicable template for other tropical regions facing similar conservation-health challenges.