Reconstructing forest cover changes for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River over the past millennium

Long-term regional forest cover datasets provide significant data for capturing historical landscape patterns and climate change. However, long-term and high-resolution forest cover data at both regional and global scales are currently scarce. This study focused on the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, an area characterized by a long history of agricultural cultivation, complex human–environment relationships, and prominent ecological-environmental challenges. By establishing a comprehensive potential forest cover extent, we developed a gridded allocation model for historical forest cover based on the “extraction-exclusion” framework. After method validation, we utilized this model to obtain a forest cover dataset with a resolution of 10 km, spanning the past millennium. The results indicated severe deforestation in the study area over the past millennium, resulting in a notable decrease in forest coverage from 26% in 1000 to 13% in 1998. The lowest recorded forest coverage occurred during the 1950s, with a mere 5% coverage. During this period, deforestation expanded from the plains and river valleys to the surrounding hilly and mountainous areas. Our results can be used to model past climate change, estimate carbon emissions, assess human-activity-induced ecological deterioration, and improve global historical land-use scenarios.