Spatial dataset of conservation and restoration priority areas in Europe integrating natural capital depletion

The European Union Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the EU Nature Restoration Regulation have set ambitious targets to protect 30% of EU area, strictly protect 10%, and restore at least 20% of ecosystems in Europe. These international policy targets are an opportunity to halt and reverse the depletion of biodiversity and ecosystems, not only by strategically expanding and strengthening protected areas, but also by restoring ecosystems that have been degraded. Achieving these targets requires identifying spatial priorities for protected area expansion and restoration while considering biodiversity value, ecosystem services, socioeconomic costs. 

Here, we leveraged high-resolution European-wide spatial data and used multicriteria spatial optimisation to identify spatial priority areas for conservation and restoration. We generated spatial datasets showing priority areas for the expansion of protected areas (to reach 30% protected area coverage), for the expansion of strictly protected areas (to reach 10% of Europe under strict protection), as well as priorities for 20% of European land under restoration. 

We developed four alternative scenarios (variants) that differed in their input data and objectives. We explored two main objectives of conservation and restoration planning: 1) maintaining and restoring areas for species and habitats, and 2) maintaining and restoring areas for ecosystem services that support society and minimise socio-economic costs. In addition, we also considered natural capital depletion in the analyses, using EU-specific natural capital depletion maps (produced by Nature-3B project partners at UNEP-WCMC). Natural capital depletion maps quantify relative depletion across four dimensions: atmosphere, water, soil, and terrestrial biodiversity (BII). In certain variants, natural capital depletion layers were incorporated to prioritise areas of low depletion for conservation, and areas of high depletion for restoration.

We provide a spatially explicit dataset of priority areas for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration across Europe, integrating information on natural capital depletion. The dataset consists of gridded raster layers in the GeoTIFF format, and includes: 1) existing protected areas, and 2) spatial prioritisation outputs under four variant scenarios. The spatial data covers EU27 plus the United Kingdom, and all layers are provided at 1 km x 1 km spatial resolution.

These spatial priority maps can inform the strategic allocation of financial instruments for conservation and restoration actions. Spatial conservation prioritisation provides a framework for identifying areas where investments are likely to generate the greatest returns for nature and people, including for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and nature-based solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation.

This dataset was developed within Task 2.2 of the Nature-3B project and is tied to deliverable D2.2 "Maps of priority areas for the expansion of protected areas in Europe across scenarios and trade-offs ". This dataset builds upon data and models developed within NaturaConnect and integrates the EU-specific natural capital depletion maps produced under Task 1.4 (Deliverable D1.6 of the Nature-3B project) into the prioritisation framework. This enables a comparison of prioritisation outcomes with and without accounting for natural capital depletion, and supports further analyses of how accounting for ecosystem condition influences spatial conservation and restoration priorities under EU biodiversity policy targets.