Recovery of forest carbon density and carbon storage in a soil-degraded landscape in southeastern China

Adaptive managements on susceptible forested regions not only benefit forest recovery, but also help to improve the stability of soil-degraded area and carbon (C) sequestration. The gain of afforestation on C sink has not been addressed clearly especially in tropical and subtropical regions that will be critical in an era of global warming. Based on the Landsat satellite images, in situ forest survey and archives, we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of C density and storage in a typical soil–water conservation area in Changting county in southeastern China, dominated by the pioneer tree Pinus massoniana forest. The results showed that the C density (storage) increased significantly from 20.14 Mg C ha−1 (0.38 Tg C) in 1981 to 43.57 Mg C ha−1 (1.98 Tg C) in 2015 (p < 0.05) and proved the success of ecological management adopted considering the interactions between local residential livelihoods and the features of local forest ecosystem. In addition, the differences of C density and storage across elevational and slope gradients also narrowed over the past 35 years. The landscape also gradually shifted from lower C density to higher C density conditions based on the landscape metrics. The ecological-dominated approaches should be put in a high priority for the issue of C sequestration especially in a changing climate.