Carbon emissions induced by cropland expansion in Northeast China during the past 300 years

Assessments of the impacts of land use and land cover changes (LUCC) on the terrestrial carbon budget, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and CO2-related climatic change are important to understand the environmental effects of LUCC and provide information about the effects of historical carbon emissions. Using regional land cover reconstructions from historical records, with a bookkeeping model, we estimated the carbon sink changes caused by historical cropland expansion in Northeast China during the past 300 years. The conclusions are as follows: (1) There was a dramatic land reclamation of cropland during the past 300 years in Northeast China. Approximately 26% of the natural land was cultivated, and 38% of the grassland and 20% of the forest and shrubland were converted to cropland. (2) The carbon emission induced by cropland expansion between 1683 and 1980 was 1.06–2.55 Pg C, and the estimation from the moderate scenario was 1.45 Pg C. The carbon emissions of the soil carbon pool was larger than that from the vegetation carbon pool and comprised more than 2/3 of the total carbon emissions. (3) The carbon emissions of the three provinces in Northeast China were different. Heilongjiang Province had the largest carbon emissions, and Jilin Province had the second largest emissions. (4) The primary source of carbon emissions was forest reclamation (taking 60% of the total emissions in the moderate scenario), the secondary source was grassland cultivation (taking 27%), and the tertiary sources were shrubland and wetland reclamation (taking 13%). Examination on the data accuracy revealed that the high-resolution regional land cover data allowed the carbon budget to be evaluated at the county level and improved the precision of the results. The carbon emission estimation in this study was lower than those in previous studies because of the improved land use data quality and various types of land use change considered.