European Climate-Smart Rewilding Potential

The data is associated with the paper ‘Where could climate-smart rewilding be located in Europe?’ published in the Journal of Environmental Management (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.125084).

Data in the repository holds maps of the climate-smart rewilding potential across 28 European countries (EU26+2). The dataset includes 4 geoTIFFs:

• Ecol_Pot_1_0.tif: Ecological Potential (to facilitate best conditions for successful rewilding)
• Carb_Pot_1_0.tif: Carbon Potential (to enhance carbon storage)
• Land_Pot_1_0.tif: Land Potential (to reach high social acceptance)
• Rew_Pot_1_0.tif: Rewilding Potential (combination of Ecological, Carbon and Land Potential) 

Each potential is represented by a set of spatially explicit indicators (see list of indicators incl. the publicyl available input data in Appendix A, Table S 1 of associated paper) which are combined in an additive approach. For processing steps of the different indicators see file '_readme_IN_prep_protocoll.txt'. The overall Rewilding Potential is then calculated out of the mean of the Ecological, Carbon and Land Potential. For further details see the methods section of the paper.

Metadata:

• Data format: GeoTIFF
• Projection: EPSG 3035 (ETRS89/LAEA Europe)
• Extent: EU26+2 (all EU countries + UK and Switzerland, excluding Croatia), terrestrial area excluding urban areas
• Resolution: 1km x 1km