Preliminary data on terrestrial priority areas for achieving the 30% protection target in the EU
Creators: name: O'Connor, Louise
name: Beher, Jutta
name: Jung, Martin
name: Kujala, Heini
name: Visconti, Piero
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025

description: We present maps of protected areas in Europe and preliminary outcomes of a prioritisation at a resolution of 10x10 km in the European Union. Biodiversity features considered in the prioritisation are 1041 species and 222 habitats that are listed in the Birds and Habitats directive as well as those assessed as threatened in the IUCN red list. We also ensured all old-growth and primary forests to be fully included in the selected sites under all variant scenarios.   

The different expansion priority maps correspond to variant scenarios (created using the prioritizr R package) for achieving 30% of protected area coverage in Europe, with variations in the criteria for site selection. 

Priorities expand on and complement existing protected areas: - Natura 2000 sites (shown in the file Natura2000_1000m.tif ) - all protected areas (Natura2000 and other Nationally designated areas) (shown in the file  prct_allPA_1000m_EU.tif)      Variant priority maps are: "ExpansionMap_EU_N2K.tif" : top priorities expanding on Natura 2000 sites at the EU level without any burden sharing constraints. "ExpansionMap_EU_all.tif" : top priorities expanding on all protected areas at the EU level without any burden sharing constraints. 

"ExpansionMap_country_N2K.tif" : top priorities expanding on Natura 2000 sites at the EU level with burden sharing between member states (i.e. ensuring 30% of protected area coverage per member state). "ExpansionMap_country_all.tif" : top priorities expanding on all protected areas at the EU level with burden sharing between member states (i.e. ensuring 30% of protected area coverage per member state). 

"ExpansionMap_biogeoregion_N2K.tif" : top priorities expanding on Natura 2000 sites at the EU level with burden sharing between biogeographic regions (i.e. ensuring 30% of protected area coverage per biogeographic region). "ExpansionMap_biogeoregion_all.tif" : top priorities expanding on all protected areas at the EU level with burden sharing between biogeographic regions (i.e. ensuring 30% of protected area coverage per biogeographic region). 

"ExpansionMap_NationalPriorities_noEndemismWeight_N2K.tif" : top priorities expanding on Natura 2000 sites at the national level without considering the national share of distributions per species and habitats (endemism). "ExpansionMap_NationalPriorities_withEndemismWeight_N2K.tif" : top priorities expanding on Natura 2000 sites at the national level and considering the national share of distributions per species and habitats (endemism). 

This data supports the following publication: Visconti P., O’Connor, L., Beher, J. (2024) Approaches to identify terrestrial priority areas for achieving the 30% and 10% protection target in the EU’. (ETC BE Report 2024/4). European Topic Centre on Biodiversity and Ecosystems.)Details on the methodology and description of these maps can be found here: https://www.eionet.europa.eu/etcs/etc-be/products/etc-be-products/etc-be-report-2024-4-approaches-to-identify-terrestrial-priority-areas-for-achieving-the-30-and-10-protection-target-in-the-eu