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China’s carbon sinks from land-use change underestimated

Nature Climate Change volume 15, pages 428–435 (2025) Cite this article

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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.

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Fig. 1: The net carbon fluxes from LUC activities in China during 1981–2020.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: The estimated ELUC over time and space.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: The estimates provided in this study and other studies.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 4: The components of gross carbon fluxes and provincial contributions.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 5: The contributions of the ELUC to total land carbon sinks in China.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Data availability

The primary results presented in the study are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28252124 (ref. 50). The original LUCD dataset created by ref. 22 is available at https://doi.org/10.12199/nesdc.ecodb.rs.2023.015. The IBIS land carbon sinks estimated by ref. 24 are available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2023.11.016. The LUH2-GCB2022 data and carbon fluxes estimates from H&N2017, BLUE and OSCAR are derived from GCB2022 (ref. 2). The archive of GCB can be accessed through https://globalcarbonbudget.org/. The multiyear provincial administrative boundary data for China come from the Resources and Environmental Science Data Registration and Publishing System51. Any other data requests can be addressed to the corresponding author Z.Q.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFF0805403) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42141020). The contributions of U.M. were supported through a US Department of Energy grant to the Sandia National Laboratories, which is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525. We acknowledge the Global Carbon Project, which is responsible for the Global Carbon Budget, and we thank the LUC emission groups for producing and sharing their model outputs.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yakun Zhu, Xiaosheng Xia.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Key Laboratory of Tropical Atmosphere–Ocean System (Ministry of Education), Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, China

    Yakun Zhu, Xiaosheng Xia, Xinqing Lu & Zhangcai Qin

  2. Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, China

    Yakun Zhu

  3. Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Environment, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Josep G. Canadell

  4. Institute of Carbon Neutrality, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Shilong Piao, Xuhui Wang & Wenping Yuan

  5. Computational Biology & Biophysics, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA, USA

    Umakant Mishra

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  1. Yakun Zhu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Z.Q., W.Y. and S.P. Methodology: Z.Q., W.Y., J.G.C. and S.P. Resources: Z.Q., W.Y., U.M. and X.W. Data curation: Y.Z., X.X. and X.L. Formal analysis: Y.Z., X.X. and Z.Q. Visualization: Y.Z. and Z.Q. Supervision: Z.Q. and W.Y. Project administration: Z.Q. Writing—original draft: Y.Z. and Z.Q. Writing—review and editing: all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wenping Yuan or Zhangcai Qin.

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Zhu, Y., Xia, X., Canadell, J.G. et al. China’s carbon sinks from land-use change underestimated. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 428–435 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02296-z

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