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Abstract:
Anthropogenic alterations to terrestrial ecosystems resulting from land use transformation and agricultural intensification represent a significant driving force of global environmental change. The planetary boundary for land system change is one approach to determine an upper tolerable limit to such modifications, measured in terms of the remaining extent of major forest biomes in temperate, tropical, and boreal climatic zones on the different continents. Here, we introduce a land use change reallocation tool (LUCATOO) that can accurately represent the spatial distribution of agricultural land use for different statuses and transgression levels of the planetary boundary for land system change. By representing such configurations of global land cover and land use patterns, the tool facilitates a systematic assessment of the impacts of afforestation and deforestation scenarios on the status of this and other interconnected planetary boundaries. LUCATOO has been developed in the programming language R, is openly accessible, and can be readily adapted for land use change scenarios in applications beyond the planetary boundaries framework.
