High-resolution income projections over the 21st century in Europe consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Climate risk in Europe is unevenly distributed among the population and is projected to increase substantially over the 21st century due to evolving climatic and socioeconomic conditions. Projections of vulnerability drivers, such as income distribution, are needed for assessing future climate risk. In Europe, existing studies typically rely on inadequate proxies, such as gross domestic product per capita, to account for future vulnerability associated with income levels. This study presents a novel top–down iterative methodology to produce decadal, high-resolution (1 km) maps of disposable income across Europe for the 21st century consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). More specifically, our method aligns with SSP narratives on future economic growth, income distribution, population dynamics and settlement expansion. We illustrate two possible applications of these projections by analysing future shifts in income distribution and estimating the evolution of the number of people at risk of poverty across different development pathways. In highly unequal pathways (SSP3 and SSP4), poverty levels across Europe are projected to increase significantly, with over 30% of the population at risk of poverty by 2100. On the other hand, pathways with high economic growth, specifically SSP1 and SSP5, result in a decrease in poverty rates. This dataset can serve as a resource for examining future vulnerabilities to climate change and socioeconomic inequalities, providing valuable insights for more effective climate risk assessments and targeted adaptation strategies.