Permitted land-cover types for plantations expansion include
cropland, grassland, and other natural vegetation areas, and they
exclude forest areas (Table 3). However, plantation expansion indirectly affects forest areas through relocation of cropland and grassland. Excluding forest areas from plantation expansion can be
interpreted as a sustainability criterion, as in van Vuuren et al.
(2010) and Beringer et al. (2011). Within each land-cover type the
plantation expansion is additionally limited by land suitability criteria
based on aridity, temperature, elevation, population, and land-cover
data, as described in Havlík et al. (2011).