Representing large-scale land acquisitions in land use change scenarios for the Lao PDR
Agricultural large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) is a process that is currently not captured by land change models. We present a novel land change modeling approach that includes processes governing LSLAs and simulates their interactions with other land systems. LSLAs differ from other land change processes in two ways: (1) their changes affect hundreds to thousands of contiguous hectares at a time, far surpassing other land change processes, e.g., smallholder agriculture, and (2) as policymakers value LSLA as desirable or undesirable, their agency significantly affects LSLA occurrence.