Scenario-Based Land-Cover Futures to 2060 in Ruaha National Park within the Ruaha–Rungwa Ecosystem, Tanzania

This dataset accompanies the article “Scenario-Based Land-Cover Futures to 2060 in Ruaha National Park within the Ruaha–Rungwa Ecosystem, Tanzania.” It contains the land-use/land-cover (LULC) scenario data used to assess projected landscape change for 2030, 2040, 2050 and 2060 within a fixed analytical extent of 2,014,900 ha. The dataset covers six harmonised LULC classes: bare soil, bushland, forest, grassland, surface water and wetland. It includes projected class areas and percentages, derived woody-cover and open-terrestrial-cover indicators, woody/open-cover ratios, decadal change estimates and associated scenario maps. The projections were developed from historical LULC class areas for 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 using a CA–Markov-style scenario framework that gives greater weight to recent land-cover transitions. Spatial allocation used the supplied 2020 rendered LULC map as the initial template together with class persistence, transition tendencies and an eight-cell neighbourhood rule. The results indicate progressive expansion of grassland and contraction of forest and bushland through 2060. Because the source spatial material was supplied as a rendered image rather than original georeferenced classified rasters, the maps should be interpreted as exploratory conditional scenarios rather than validated pixel-level predictions. The dataset is intended to support reproducibility, conservation planning, protected-area monitoring and further research on long-term land-cover dynamics in the Ruaha landscape.