China’s forests increased by 4 million hectares/year in 2000-15 and by 2 million hectares/year in 2015-22, according to a Geophysical Research Letters study.
As the largest carbon reservoir in terrestrial ecosystems, forests are an indispensable part of China’s carbon sink. Explicitly monitoring when, where, and how the forest recovery happening in China is crucial.
In this study, a fractional tree cover product (named GLOBMAP FTC China) was generated, providing the coverage of trees within pixels. Compared to other remote sensing products, this product is proved to have the best consistency with China’s National Forest Inventory (NFI).
Applying the product for analysis, researchers found that China’s forests have been recovering since 2000, and the increasing rate then slowed by 50% after 2015. Forest area in southwestern China shows the fastest increasing rate during 2000–2022, which is more than 0.2 Mha per year.
The changes primarily show a stepwise transition from forests with a low fractional tree cover to forests with a higher fractional tree cover, which mainly thanks to the forest conservation and restoration programs.
The study underscores that trees’ growth dominates the greening in China’s forests, highlighting the importance of the new fractional tree cover product for future accurate forest change studies and implications for forest management.
The findings are crucial for climate change mitigation as proposed by the Paris Agreement.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 52, No 22. Nov 24, 2024.
China Environment News 