Forest expansion dominates China's land carbon sink since 1980

Zhen Yu; Philippe Ciais; Shilong Piao; Richard A Houghton; Chaoqun Lu; Hanqin Tian; Evgenios Agathokleous; Giri Raj Kattel; Stephen Sitch; Daniel Goll; Xu Yue; Anthony Walker; Pierre Friedlingstein; Atul K Jain; Shirong Liu; Guoyi Zhou

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32961-2

Forest expansion dominates China's land carbon sink since 1980

Nat Commun. 2022 Sep 13;13(1):5374. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32961-2.

Authors

Zhen Yu^{1

2

3}, Philippe Ciais⁴, Shilong Piao⁵, Richard A Houghton⁶, Chaoqun Lu⁷, Hanqin Tian⁸, Evgenios Agathokleous¹, Giri Raj Kattel^{9

10

11}, Stephen Sitch¹², Daniel Goll⁴, Xu Yue¹³, Anthony Walker¹⁴, Pierre Friedlingstein¹⁵, Atul K Jain¹⁶, Shirong Liu¹⁷, Guoyi Zhou¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Ecology and School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment, China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
³ Research Center for Global Changes and Ecosystem Carbon Sequestration & Mitigation, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
⁴ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ Gif-sur-Yvette, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁵ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁶ Woodwell Climate Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
⁸ Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA.
⁹ School of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
¹⁰ Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia.
¹¹ Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
¹² College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
¹³ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
¹⁴ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA.
¹⁵ College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
¹⁶ University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
¹⁷ Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment, China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China. liusr@caf.ac.cn.
¹⁸ Institute of Ecology and School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China. gyzhou@nuist.edu.cn.

Abstract

Carbon budget accounting relies heavily on Food and Agriculture Organization land-use data reported by governments. Here we develop a new land-use and cover-change database for China, finding that differing historical survey methods biased China's reported data causing large errors in Food and Agriculture Organization databases. Land ecosystem model simulations driven with the new data reveal a strong carbon sink of 8.9 ± 0.8 Pg carbon from 1980 to 2019 in China, which was not captured in Food and Agriculture Organization data-based estimations due to biased land-use and cover-change signals. The land-use and cover-change in China, characterized by a rapid forest expansion from 1980 to 2019, contributed to nearly 44% of the national terrestrial carbon sink. In contrast, climate changes (22.3%), increasing nitrogen deposition (12.9%), and rising carbon dioxide (8.1%) are less important contributors. This indicates that previous studies have greatly underestimated the impact of land-use and cover-change on the terrestrial carbon balance of China. This study underlines the importance of reliable land-use and cover-change databases in global carbon budget accounting.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Carbon Dioxide / analysis
Carbon Sequestration*
China
Ecosystem*
Forests

Substances

Carbon Dioxide