Europe's mountain and remote rural areas supply much of the continent's water, food, timber, energy, and biodiversity, yet many are losing people, services, and economic influence. To explore where these regions are heading, MARGISTAR convened a Delphi study with 23 experts from across Europe, who assessed 28 drivers of change for their impact and for how uncertain they are over the next ten years and beyond.

The results separate the future into two parts. Experts agree on a set of trends they expect in every scenario: more intense climate hazards, continued out-migration and population ageing, ongoing erosion of local services, persistent tensions between nature conservation and local development, and weak local capacity unless it is addressed. They are far less sure about five critical uncertainties: whether local adaptation can keep pace with climate change, how far biodiversity loss will go, how climate adaptation will unfold, whether tourism will remain the economic mainstay, and how severe water scarcity will become.