Current and future scenarios of EUNIS habitats distribution in Europe

The EUNIS habitat classification is a key framework for categorising European habitats and supporting biodiversity policies, including the implementation of the nature restoration law. It organises habitat types into a hierarchical system, with over 200 distinct habitat classes at level 3, grouped into broader formations at level 1—such as saltmarshes (MA2), coastal habitats (N), wetlands (Q), grasslands (R), shrublands (S), forests (T), sparsely vegetated areas (U), and man-made habitats (V) (Chytrý et al., 2020).

To support growing demands for spatially explicit and forward-looking habitat data, we applied habitat distribution modelling (HDM) to produce projections of over 260 EUNIS level 3 habitats at 1 km resolution across Europe. These projections cover both current conditions and multiple future scenarios, including three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1, SSP3, SSP5). For SSP1, we also include land use outcomes from the three Nature Futures Framework perspectives: Nature-for-Nature, Nature-for-Society, and Nature-as-Culture.

We used ensemble machine learning models that integrate climate projections, land use scenarios, and environmental variables such as topography and soil to estimate the most probable EUNIS habitat type at each grid cell. The dataset includes not only habitat predictions but also assessments of model uncertainty and the dominant habitat types within each EUNIS level 1 category.

These spatial outputs are valuable for informing long-term conservation and restoration strategies, and can be refined further with local or high-resolution land cover data for more detailed planning and implementation.