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, including afforestation and reforestation (49.0%), reduced wood extraction (21.8%), fire prevention and suppression (1.6%) and grassland grazing exclusion (0.3%). The remaining 27.3% come from changes in atmospheric CO₂ (42.2%) and climate (−14.9%). Our results underscore the potential of active land management in achieving ‘carbon-neutrality’ in China.