Mapping current and future coffee suitability in Peru under climate change: implications for restoration and deforestation-free development

Abstract

Coffee cultivation is central to rural livelihoods and Andean–Amazonian landscapes in Peru but faces increasing pressure from climate change and land-use restrictions. This study assessed the current and future ecological suitability of Coffea arabica at the national scale using a Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modeling framework integrating high-resolution bioclimatic, topographic, and edaphic predictors. Model performance was robust (mean AUC = 0.858). Elevation, precipitation of the driest quarter (bio17), soil nitrogen content, and bulk density were identified as the strongest determinants of habitat suitability. Under current climatic conditions, highly suitable areas cover 42,322.95 km² (3.3% of Peru), mainly along the eastern Andean slopes. Spatial exclusion scenarios revealed a pronounced funnel effect in effective land availability. While excluding protected areas resulted in moderate reductions, forest-cover exclusion—consistent with deforestation-free regulations—caused contractions exceeding 80% in several departments. Approximately 39.8% of highly suitable areas overlap with degraded lands, indicating significant opportunities for productive restoration through coffee-based agroforestry systems. Future projections under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 1–2.6 (SSP1–2.6) to SSP5–8.5 scenarios indicate consistent contractions of highly suitable areas (−23% to This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article −42%) and a progressive upslope shift toward higher elevations. Unsuitable areas expand by approximately 4–5% nationally. These findings provide spatially explicit evidence to support climate-smart territorial planning, restoration prioritization, and sustainable coffee development in tropical mountain systems under accelerating climate change.