Contributions of ecological restoration policies to China's land carbon balance.

ABSTRACT: Unleashing the land sector's potential for climate mitigation requires purpose-driven changes in land management. However, contributions of past management changes to the current global and regional carbon cycles remain unclear. Here, we use vegetation modelling to reveal how a portfolio of ecological restoration policies has impacted China's terrestrial carbon balance through developing counterfactual 'no-policy' scenarios. Pursuing conventional policies and assuming no changes in climate or atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) since 1980 would have led China's land sector to be a carbon source of 0.11 Pg C yr^-1 for 2001-2020, in stark contrast to a sink of 175.9 Tg C yr^-1 in reality. About 72.7% of this difference can be attributed to land management changes,

SUBMITTER: Yue C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11550817 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature