Promoting low-carbon land use: from theory to practical application through exploring new methods

Cities are major carbon emitters. Land-use change affects both terrestrial ecosystem carbon and anthropogenic emissions, but spatial carbon monitoring is coarse and cannot guide patch-scale adjustments. This study develops a high-resolution carbon monitoring model and a patch-scale low-carbon land-use model by integrating high-resolution carbon sink/source imagery with a land-use simulation model (FLUS). Using Shangyu District (China) from 2000–2020, both emissions and sinks increased, but sinks offset only about 3% of emissions. The north is a net source; the south is a net sink. About 14.5% of land changed type, with cropland transfer-out largest (96.44 km²; 50% of transfers). Land-use transfers increased emissions by 77.72 × 10^4 t/year (2000–2020). Optimizing land-use structure limits the 2000–2030 emissions increase to 7154 t C/year, far below the historical increase; further patch-scale optimization enhances carbon sink by 129.59 t C/year. The methods enable high-resolution monitoring and practical, patch-scale low-carbon land-use planning to reduce emissions.

Xiaowei Chuai, Hongbo Xu, Zemiao Liu, Ai Xiang, Yuting Luo, Wanliu Mao, Tong Wang, Xin Ye, Lijuan Miao, Rongqin Zhao, Fengtai Zhang