Fig. 3: Spatial representation of the three different wetland restoration scenarios in European watersheds.

a–c, Percentage of area drained for agriculture restored to meet the policy target of the Full Restoration (a), Cap 4% (b) and Farmland Abandonment (c) scenarios, where the drained area refers to the estimates of agriculturally drained area developed by Fluet-Chouinard et al.⁴⁸, and mapped to the HYBAS-7 watershed scale. d–f, Estimated N removal by restored wetlands for the Full Restoration (d), Cap 4% (e) and Farmland Abandonment (f) scenarios aggregated at the HYBAS-7 watershed scale. A threshold of 10 kg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ has been set for the colour bar for consistency with Fig. 2b. g–i, Percentage reduction in riverine N load as a result of wetland restoration for the Full Restoration (g), Cap 4% (h) and Farmland Abandonment (i) scenarios. River basins have been aggregated according to the CCM2 database and are delineated by dark lines, with 299 inland and 587 coastal basins (Methods). Note that in the Farmland abandonment scenario (c,f,i), some portions of the Balkan regions, as well as Switzerland and Norway, have been omitted because the data for farmland abandonment are limited to the EU27 and United Kingdom⁴⁹.