Citation: Huber, P.R.; Baker, M.; Hollander, A.D.; Lange, M.; Miller, D.; Quinn, J.F.; Riggle, C.; Tomich, T.P. Linking Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing in Systematic Conservation Assessments of Working Landscapes. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9912. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su15139912 Academic Editor: Piotr Prus Received: 29 April 2023 Revised: 9 June 2023 Accepted: 15 June 2023 Published: 21 June 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Linking Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing in Systematic Conservation Assessments of Working Landscapes Patrick R. Huber 1, *, Matthew Baker 2 , Allan D. Hollander 1 , Matthew Lange 3 , Daphne Miller 4 , James F. Quinn 1 , Courtney Riggle 3 and Thomas P. Tomich 1 1 Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA; adhollander@ucdavis.edu (A.D.H.); jfquinn@ucdavis.edu (J.F.Q.); tptomich@ucdavis.edu (T.P.T.) 2 Planning and Conservation League, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA; matthew@pcl.org 3 International Center for Food Ontology Operability Data and Semantics (IC-FOODS), Davis, CA 95616, USA; matthew@ic-foods.org (M.L.); courtney@ic-foods.org (C.R.) 4 Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; drmiller@berkeley.edu * Correspondence: prhuber@ucdavis.edu Abstract: Systematic land use planning to address environmental impacts does not typically include human health and wellbeing as explicit inputs. We tested the effects of including issues related to human health, ecosystem services, and community wellbeing on the outputs of a standard land use planning process which is primarily focused on environmental variables. We consulted regional stakeholders to identify the health issues that have environmental links in the Sacramento, California region and to identify potential indicators and datasets that can be used to assess and track these issues. Marxan planning software was used to identify efficient land use patterns to maximize both ecological conservation and human health outcomes. Outputs from five planning scenarios were compared and contrasted, resulting in a spatially explicit series of tradeoffs across the scenarios. Total area required to meet imputed goals ranged from 10.4% to 13.4% of the total region, showing somewhat less efficiency in meeting biodiversity goals when health outcomes are included. Additionally, we found 4.8% of residential areas had high greening needs, but this varied significantly across the six counties. The work provides an example of how integrative assessment can help inform management decisions or stakeholder negotiations potentially leading to better management of the production landscapes in food systems. Keywords: conservation planning; human health; Marxan; biodiversity; land use; smart foodsheds 1. Introduction Food systems are the full suite of actors, actions, and systems that describe the produc- tion, distribution, and consumption of food [1]. They encompass the natural environment in which it is produced as well as social and human systems. As such, they are very complex, and planning for and within them has historically been done in a “siloed” manner. More recently, there have been efforts to move planning in a more holistic direction, at least within portions of food systems. One example can be found in biodiversity assessments. Systematic conservation planning has been undertaken in many contexts globally for several decades. These efforts generally consist of assessing current status of land use in a planning region, identifying conservation targets, establishing goals for these targets, identifying gaps where regional goals have not been reached, and applying a variety of planning tools to identify effective ways of closing these gaps to meet a full suite of planning goals [2,3]. The systematic nature of this approach has led to more inclusive planning frameworks and away from planning for single features (e.g., species) in many cases. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9912. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15139912 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability