**5. Conclusions**

The prediction accuracy of land use types directly related to GHG accounting and emission/absorption managemen<sup>t</sup> in the LULUCF sector in Lithuania was above 80% over a five-year period into the future. Land use types whose abundance changed relatively linearly during the last three decades—forest and built-up lands—were predicted with accuracies of 96% and above. The most challenging was the prediction of land use types on agricultural land, i.e., the separation between producing land and grassland. These results were obtained using a compatible methodological approach based on a Markov chain-type model as used by Lithuanian authorities to estimate forest reference levels for the country following the European Union land use, land use change, and forestry regulation for 2021–2030. It should be emphasized that driver variables affecting land

use transformation over time were estimated from information freely available from GIS databases, as the modeling exercise was implemented using standard GIS software.

All scenarios tested suggested that the LULUCF sector in Lithuania would accumulate carbon during the next decade, starting in 2020. The main land use type contributing to the most carbon absorption will remain forest land. Even though the proportion of forest land area in Lithuania is predicted to increase, we did not manage to simulate forest land proportions exceeding 37% of the country's area by either applying land use managemen<sup>t</sup> approaches as they were applied since 2005 or by introducing additional measures to support forest land expansion. The key factors to improve the GHG balance from the LULUCF sector in the near future, assuming a stable development of forest land and strict deforestation control, are keeping the proportion of producing land and grassland and afforestation of abandoned and uncultivated agricultural lands.

To facilitate CO2 emission/absorption managemen<sup>t</sup> in the LULUCF sector together with increasing socioeconomic and environmental benefits of Lithuanian rural landscapes, more sophisticated tools to support the monitoring, analysis, and modeling of land-related mitigation activities are needed. Lithuania has developed an original land use monitoring system that is used for GHG reporting, which, up to some level, predetermines land use development projections. However, even though the system is sufficient to fulfil the country's international climate change mitigation commitments, it encompasses a number of limitations in both substantiating the methodology and the way it is operationally implemented. Further research is needed to improve the methodological framework for integrated land management, which can make use of the digital technologies for inventory and decision support to serve the needs of managers and policy makers with a specific focus on GHG management. More specifically, wall-to-wall mapped land use and land use changes would provide better inputs for land use development scenario modeling using the methodological approach tested in this study. The development of spatially explicit land use change scenario modeling and analysis tools could focus on the use of cellular automata and agent-based modeling approaches.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, G.M. and D.J.; methodology, G.M. and D.J.; software, G.M. and D.J.; validation, G.M.; formal analysis, G.M. and D.J.; writing—original draft preparation, G.M.; writing—review and editing, D.J.; visualization, G.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data available on request.

**Acknowledgments:** The study was implemented within the framework of a research project following the conditions of the agreemen<sup>t</sup> between Aleksandras Stulginskis University and the State Forest Service of the Ministry of Environment of Republic of Lithuania No. 22 from 26 May 2016: "Project development for a forest managemen<sup>t</sup> and land use scenario modeling subsystem within the National Forest Inventory Information System".

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
