Measurement of China's provincial social cost of carbon under the integrated socioeconomic-climate framework

Spatiotemporal foresting of soil erosion for SSP-RCP scenarios considering local vegetation restoration project: A case study in the three gorges reservoir (TGR) area, China

Soil erosion is a common form of land degradation. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) provides a scenario framework for global socio-economic development and climate change by combining Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). The soil erosion estimation under global climate change and land-use change scenarios provided by CMIP6 is valuable for representing future changes and hotspots. This study estimated the future changes in soil erosion in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) area, China, which has suffered severe soil loss over an extended period, and vegetation restoration projects have been conducted since 1999. The scenarios provided by SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 were coupled with the scenarios of regional vegetation restoration projects to reflect future land use changes (LUC) and climate change. The results showed that future soil erosion from 2020 to 2100 in the TGR area will experience a non-significant decreasing trend (with trend slopes of -0.013, -0.020, and-0.006 in SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5, respectively, with p > 0.05). However, with the R factors calculated by different methods, this decreasing trend becomes either insignificant or a significant increasing trend. SSP1-2.6 will experience the lowest soil erosion in 2100 owing to the large amount of forest increase in this scenario. Furthermore, as estimates, the grain-for-green policy (GGP) will reduce 89353.47, 92737.73 and 42916.52 ton soil erosion per year in SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP3-8.5 by 2100, respectively. In the future, the GGP will become increasingly important for controlling soil loss in the TGR area owing to the increasing precipitation in all scenarios, which increases the risk of soil loss.

Multi-scenario simulation of China's dynamic relationship between water-land resources allocation and cultivated land use based on shared socioeconomic pathways

Rapid urban expansion, population growth, and limited cultivated land in China necessitate rethinking the path to sustainable management of cultivated land. Understanding the long-term dynamic relationship between water-land resource endowment and cultivated land use contributes to effective management and use of cultivated land. However, few studies have systematically documented this relationship, especially for future trends. Accordingly, we modified water-land resource matching (WLRM) using a more refined grid-scale and assessed cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE), then deployed spatial panel regression models to quantify historical changes. We subsequently simulated future trends under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios. The results showed that the relationship assumed an N-shaped curve in nation, while the curve followed a down-up-down pattern in economically less developed regions, largely because of structural transformations of production factors. Under three development scenarios, the stage-specific characteristics of production factors were pronounced, and the dynamic relationship varied across regions.