Abstract
Ecosystem restoration is central to achieving sustainability goals, yet reconciling trade-offs between carbon sequestration, water security, and soil erosion regulation remains a critical challenge. Here, we leverage China’s large-scale Ecological Restoration Programs (ERPs) by combining 1-km fine-scale remote sensing data with biophysical modeling from 2000 to 2020. Our analysis demonstrates that ERPs substantially enhanced carbon sequestration, with gains exceeding 80% in some regions, but triggered spatially divergent water-soil trade-offs. While grid-scale analyses showed predominant widespread synergies of 64–75% coverage, county-scale assessments revealed trade-offs in 32% of regions, linked to climatic gradients and land-use pressures. We identified three strategic intervention points that successfully transformed trade-offs into synergies. Collectively, we provide a transferable ‘Spatial-Temporal-Policy Priority’ framework for optimizing restoration outcomes, offering a blueprint for aligning climate and sustainable development goals in global restoration initiatives.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during this study are available in public repositories or included in the supplementary materials. Remote sensing data (MODIS NPP, evapotranspiration, and land cover) were sourced from Google Earth Engine (https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets), while climate and soil data are openly available from CHIRPS and Harmonized World Soil Database (https://www.fao.org/soils-portal/data-hub/soil-maps-and-databases/harmonized-world-soil-database-v12/en/). County-level ERP implementation records and socioeconomic data were obtained from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (http://www.stats.gov.cn) and provincial ecological yearbooks, is available at https://zenodo.org/records/18921770.
Code availability
The codes and packages used for data processing with standard software python described in “Methods” section, is available at the GitHub repository (https://github.com/Luna-Wang808/code).
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Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2022YFF0802400) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42377464).
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L.H. Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing. Q.W. Methodology, Software, Validation, Data curation, Visualization, Writing-original draft. W.C. Resources, Supervision, Project administration, Writing-review & editing. J.D. Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Writing-review & editing.
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Communications Earth and Environment thanks Jaramar Villarreal-Rosas, Philip Roche and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Paula Prist, Mengjie Wang. A peer review file is available.
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Huang, L., Wang, Q., Cao, W. et al. Decoding China’s success in balancing carbon, water, and soil synergies in ecosystem restoration. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03421-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03421-2
