Evaluation of the Impacts of Change in Land Use/Cover on Carbon Storage in Multiple Scenarios in the Taihang Mountains, China

Research on the spatiotemporal changes in land use/cover (LUC) and carbon storage (CS) in the region of the Taihang Mountains in various developmental scenarios can provide significant guidance for optimizing the structure of LUC and formulating ecologically friendly economic development policies. We employed the PLUS and InVEST models to study change in LUC and CS in the Taihang Mountains from 1990 to 2020. Based on these results, we established three distinct development scenarios: a business-as-usual development scenario, a cropland protection scenario, and an ecological conservation scenario. Based on these three developmental scenarios, we simulated the spatiotemporal changes in LUC and CS in the Taihang Mountains in 2035. The results indicate that: (1) from 1990 to 2020, the CS in the Taihang Mountains increased from 1575.91 Tg to 1598.57 Tg, with a growth rate of approximately 1.44%. The primary source of this growth is attributed to the expansion of forests. (2) In the business-as-usual development scenario, the growth rate of CS in the Taihang Mountains was approximately 0.45%, indicating a slowdown in the trend. This suggests that economic development has the consequences of aggravating human–land conflicts, leading to a deceleration in the growth of CS. (3) In the cropland protection scenario, the increase in the CS in the Taihang Mountains was similar to the CS increase in the business-as-usual development scenario. However, the expansion of cropland dominated by impermeable surfaces, which indicates economic development, was considerably constrained in this scenario. (4) In the ecological conservation scenario, the increase in carbon storage in the Taihang Mountains was 1.16%, which is the fastest among all three scenarios. At the same time, there was a certain degree of development of impermeable surfaces, achieving a balance between economic development and ecological conservation.