Land Zoning Management to Achieve Carbon Neutrality: A Case Study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China

Land use/cover change (LUCC) has been identified as a crucial driver of changes in the spatiotemporal distribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, few studies have proposed land use optimization to identify key zones for launching ecological engineering projects. Adopting multi-source data and spatial analysis, we estimate the impact of LUCC on CO2 emissions and ecological support capacity. Importantly, the spatial evolution and inequality of carbon sources and sinks are evaluated. The results suggest that (1) the growth of urban areas due to urbanization has exceeded 5293 km(2) over the last 18 years and that the number of closed forest areas increased by 1444 km(2) while decreases of 16,418, 9437, and 1250 km(2) were observed in the water body, cropland, and grassland land-use types, respectively; (2) CO2 levels rose dramatically in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, increasing from 8.7 x 10(7) tCO(2) in 2000 to 26 x 10(7) tCO(2) in 2018; (3) there is increasing inequality in the emission levels among cities; and (4) the spatial differences in the carbon sink and ecological support capacity are huge. Our findings have the potential to improve the government's understanding of how to take action to optimize land-use types and how to launch engineering projects in key zones to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality, as well as to provide a new perspective for studies on the controls and mitigation of CO2 emissions.