Projections of China’s Forest Carbon Storage and Sequestration and Ways of Their Potential Capacity Enhancement

Enhancing forest carbon sink is an effective way to slow down the rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, contributing to China’s national strategic goals for carbon neutrality. This review summarizes major research progresses in quantification of dynamic changes in forest carbon storage and sink, and explores the ways of their potential capacity enhancement. According to the China’s national forest resources inventory, the carbon storage of forests has increased by an average annual rate of 0.152 Pg in the past five years. The carbon sink of China’s terrestrial ecosystems during the 2000s—2010s was about 229.7 Tg·a−1, of which forests (here only referring to arbor forests) increased by about 150.6 Tg·a−1, accounting for about 65.6% of the total terrestrial vegetation carbon sink. Over the past 70 years, China’s forests have turned from carbon source to rising carbon sink. The potential capacity of forest biomass carbon storage and sink are projected with the two scenarios. Without increasing afforestation, the existing forest biomass carbon sink will be likely to decline after 2030 compared with the base line of 2020, while it may continue to increase during 2030 to 2050 with increasing afforestation. Under the global change, climate change and climate-driven disturbance risks (such as extreme droughts and heatwaves, forest fires, pests and disease outbreaks) may fundamentally jeopardize forest carbon sinks. Therefore, in order to maintain and enhance the carbon sink capacity of China’s forests, it is necessary to scientifically optimize national forest management schemes in terms of carbon pool preservation of the existing natural forests, carbon sink enhancement either through rational management of the existing forests or through afforestation expansion, and carbon sink transfer from the living forests to the forest product pool for simultaneously maintaining sustainable improvements of both forest carbon stock and sink. Forest soils should be given due attention as a slowly increasing sink potential from a long-term perspective. Under the framework of forest mitigation and adaptation to climate change, future research priorities in forest carbon sequestration include identification of suitable site and tree species for land greening under a changing environment, forest adaptive management regime for carbon sequestration enhancement, insight into the mechanisms underlying forest soil carbon sequestration, and optimizing tempo-spatial patterns of synergistic enhancements in forest biomass carbon stock and sink capacity. In addition, there is a need to accurately assess the potential capacity of forest carbon sink contributing to achieving China’s carbon neutrality goal with the defined timeline and roadmap of the deliverables. © 2024 Chinese Society of Forestry. All rights reserved.