Opportunity cost estimates for spatial conservation prioritisation across terrestrial Europe.

ABSTRACT: Opportunity costs of conservation represent the foregone economic benefits from using land for nature conservation rather than alternative activities. Considering opportunity costs therefore helps in identifying cost-effective solutions in conservation prioritisation analyses. Since comprehensive, high-resolution, pan-European opportunity cost data are currently lacking, we created a 1 km European layer of opportunity costs (€/ha/yr) for arable, pastoral, forestry and urban lands. To create this layer, we estimated the opportunity costs of productive lands (agriculture and forestry) based on (sub)national land and resource rent data, which we allocated to the grid level integrating agricultural and forestry yield data with country-specific commodity prices. We estimated opportunity costs o

SUBMITTER: Spencer D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12480582 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature