,,,- KIT, IMK-IFU, GAP, Germany (almut.arneth@kit.edu)
The restoration of ecosystems, including through rewilding, has received considerable attention as a measure to promote biodiversity and benefit the fight against climate change by increasing carbon uptake. However, reducing land-use activities in intensively managed regions such as Europe is expected to affect the entire agricultural and forestry system, resulting in benefits and drawbacks relating to the impact on various ecosystem services. Changes to land use will affect the climate-food-water nexus in various ways, from intensifying food and timber production in regions unaffected by rewilding, to directly impacting the restoration of trophic chains in rewilded forests. Using simulation results from a variety of process-based models (Brown et al., 2019; Ferretto et al., 2025; Krause et al., 2025), we will explore the impact of rewilding 1-2% of the European land area (corresponding to the top 10% of the area identified as having rewilding potential, Kloibhofer et al., 2025) on land-use change in Europe over the coming decades for a number of climate change scenarios, and how these in turn affect carbon uptake and storage in rewilded and non-rewilded areas, as well as other relevant ecosystem services such as crop and timber yields, runoff, and other greenhouse gas emissions (nitrous oxides).
Brown, C., Seo, B., & Rounsevell, M. (2019). Societal breakdown as an emergent property of large-scale behavioural models of land use change. Earth Syst. Dynam., 10(4), 809-845. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-809-2019
Ferretto, A., Anthoni, P., Pugh, T. A. M., Gregor, K., Thurner, M., Natel, C., Wårlind, D., Lindeskog, M., & Arneth, A. (2025). The impact of changing forest composition in Europe - longest carbon turnover time in unmanaged and broadleaved deciduous forests. Plos One, 20(10), Article e0334118. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334118
Kloibhofer, J., Prestele, R., Leitinger, G. F., & Rounsevell, M. D. A. (2025). Where could climate-smart rewilding be located in Europe? . Journal of Environmental Management, 380(125084).
Krause, J., Anthoni, P., Harfoot, M., Kupisch, M., & Arneth, A. (2025). Modelling Herbivory Impacts on Vegetation Structure and Productivity. EGUsphere, accepted, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1646
How to cite: Arneth, A., Ferretto, A., Krause, J., Kloibhofer, J., Prestele, R., Alvarez, H., Bampoh, D., Damseaux, A., Laimer, T., Natel, C., Rounsevell, M., and Wittenbrink, M.: The impact of rewilding on European ecosystems, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-721, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-721, 2026.
