Zhang et al. (2026): Enhanced forest management rather than afforestation has dominated China’s carbon sink over recent decades
Mengyu Zhang, Honglin He, Martin Brandt, Li Zhang, Xiaoli Ren, Xiaowei Tong, Shiyong Yu, Yan Lv, Kailiang Yu, Yuanyuan Huang, Yuchuan Fan, Zhong’en Niu, Liang Shi, Keyu Qin, Tong Zhao and Guirui Yu, IN: Communications Earth & Environment, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03176-2
Human activities substantially reduce net ecosystem productivity (NEP) globally, yet debates remain over the contributions of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), such as afforestation (afforestation and reforestation), versus non-LUCC ecosystem management (EM; e.g., forest tending, mountain forest restoration, and fire control). Here, the authors developed an analytical framework by harmonizing structurally consistent remote sensing-driven and climate-driven ecological process models to quantify the dynamic effects of LUCC and eight EM types on NEP from 2001 to 2021 in China by isolating anthropogenic effects from global change factors.