China’s carbon sinks from land-use change underestimated
Yakun Zhu,
Xiaosheng Xia,
Josep G. Canadell,
Shilong Piao,
Xinqing Lu,
Umakant Mishra,
Xuhui Wang,
Wenping Yuan () and
Zhangcai Qin ()
Additional contact information
Yakun Zhu: Sun Yat-Sen University
Xiaosheng Xia: Sun Yat-Sen University
Josep G. Canadell: CSIRO Environment
Shilong Piao: Peking University
Xinqing Lu: Sun Yat-Sen University
Umakant Mishra: Sandia National Laboratories
Xuhui Wang: Peking University
Wenping Yuan: Peking University
Zhangcai Qin: Sun Yat-Sen University
Nature Climate Change, 2025, vol. 15, issue 4, 428-435
Abstract:
Abstract The size and attribution of the regional net carbon flux from land-use change (LUC) activities (ELUC) are often highly debated, especially in regions such as China, which has experienced decades-long extensive reforestation activities. Here, using a LUC dataset incorporating remote-sensing and national forest inventory data with two modelling approaches, we show that ELUC in China shifted from a carbon source to a sink in the 1990s, contributing to a net cumulative CO2 removal of 2.0 Pg C during 1981–2020. From 2001 to 2020, the average ELUC was −0.14 Pg C yr−1, accounting for over one-third of the national land carbon sinks. Forest-related LUC activities contributed greatly to national carbon fluxes, while non-forest-related activities played a dominant role in certain areas. Our findings suggest that the carbon sinks from LUC activities in China may be largely underestimated in global assessments, underscoring the need to develop region-specific modelling for evaluation and potential regulation.
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02296-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:15:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1038_s41558-025-02296-z
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02296-z
Access Statistics for this article
Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake
More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().