Satellite-Observed Increase in Aboveground Carbon over Southwest China during 2013-2021

Over the past 4 decades, Southwest China has the fast vegetation growth and aboveground biomass carbon (AGC) accumulation, largely attributed to the active implementation of ecological projects. However, Southwest China has been threatened by frequent extreme drought events recently, potentially countering the expected large AGC increase caused by the ecological projects. Here, we used the L-band vegetation optical depth to quantify the AGC dynamics over Southwest China during the period 2013-2021. Our results showed a net AGC sink of 0.064 [0.057, 0.077] Pg C year⁻¹ (the range represents the maximum and minimum AGC values), suggesting that Southwest China acted as an AGC sink over the study period. Note that the AGC loss of 0.113 [0.101, 0.136] Pg C year⁻¹ was found during 2013-2014, which could mainly be attributed to the negative influence of extreme droughts on AGC changes in Southwest China, particularly in the Yunnan province. For each land use type (i.e., dense forests, persistent forests, nonforests, afforestation, and forestry), the largest AGC stock increase of 0.032 [0.028, 0.036] Pg C year⁻¹ was found in nonforests, owing to their widespread land cover rate over Southwest China. For AGC density (i.e., AGC per unit area), the afforestation areas showed the largest AGC density increase of 0.808 [0.724, 0.985] Mg C ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, reflecting the positive effect of afforestation on AGC increase. Moreover, the karst areas exhibited a higher increasing rate of AGC density than nonkarst areas, suggesting that the karst ecosystems have a high carbon sink capacity over Southwest China.