The role of spatial criteria in enhancing forest restoration actions: a systematic review

Forest and landscape restoration are crucial for enhancing ecosystem integrity and the services it provides. However, achieving successful restoration outcomes presents significant methodological challenges and demands significant financial and human resources. Selecting appropriate restoration sites within the landscape is crucial for determining the effectiveness of forest restoration. The restored habitats must complement existing ones by fulfilling structural and functional roles in the landscape. There are numerous approaches to prioritizing and selecting areas for restoration, often employing Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) to address the spatial complexities arising from diverse environmental, ecological, climatic, and anthropic landscape characteristics. This review identifies 59 distinct spatial criteria, systematically grouped into nine thematic categories: ecological, pedology, disturbances, water and hydrology, topography, climate, land use and land cover, socioeconomic, and protected areas. Through bibliometric analysis, we observed an increasing number of studies over time, with an intense regional concentration in tropical and subtropical biomes, particularly in Latin America. Despite the predominance of studies from Brazil, recent publications indicate a gradual expansion of MCDA-based approaches to other regions, such as the Mediterranean and semi-arid landscapes. Our findings highlight the growing complexity of spatial decision-making in forest restoration and underscore the need for a more standardized approach to selecting spatial criteria. This study offers critical insights into the methodological advances and geographic trends in restoration planning, providing a foundation for enhancing decision-support frameworks and informing future research and conservation policies.