Research overview: systematic conservation planning under climate uncertainty

Systematic conservation planning uses optimization to select areas that efficiently meet biodiversity targets, and it is being adapted to account for climate change. This overview surveys how planning tools incorporate projected range shifts, refugia, and connectivity, and how they handle the deep uncertainty in future projections through robust or scenario-based approaches. It reviews applications relevant to cats, where prioritizing land for protection must balance present and future value. The synthesis frames climate-smart spatial planning as a quantitative framework for deciding where to invest scarce conservation resources, explaining why selecting reserves for a changing world differs from optimizing for the present, and why explicitly planning for uncertainty is now considered best practice.