Are land‐use change emissions in Southeast Asia decreasing or increasing?

Southeast Asia is a region known for active land-use changes (LUC) over the past 60 years; yet, how trends in net CO2 uptake and release resulting from LUC activities (net LUC flux) have changed through past decades remains uncertain. The level of uncertainty in net LUC flux from process-based models is so high that it cannot be concluded that newer estimates are necessarily more reliable than older ones. Here, we examined net LUC flux estimates of Southeast Asia for the 1980s−2010s from older and newer sets of Dynamic Global Vegetation Model simulations (TRENDY v2 and v7, respectively), and forcing data used for running those simulations, along with two book-keeping estimates (H&N and BLUE). These estimates yielded two contrasting historical LUC transitions, such that TRENDY v2 and H&N showed a transition from increased emissions from the 1980s to 1990s to declining emissions in the 2000s, while TRENDY v7 and BLUE showed the opposite transition. We found that these contrasting transitions originated in the update of LUC forcing data, which reduced the loss of forest area during the 1990s. Further evaluation of remote sensing studies, atmospheric inversions, and the history of forestry and environmental policies in Southeast Asia supported the occurrence of peak emissions in the 1990s and declining thereafter. However, whether LUC emissions continue to decline in Southeast Asia remains uncertain as key processes in recent years, such as conversion of peat forest to oil-palm plantation, are yet to be represented in the forcing data, suggesting a need for further revision.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Kondo, Masayuki
Sitch, Stephen
Ciais, Philippe
Achard, Frédéric
Kato, Etsushi
Pongratz, Julia
Houghton, Richard A.
Canadell, Josep G.
Patra, Prabir K.
Friedlingstein, Pierre
Li, Wei
Anthoni, Peter
Arneth, Almut
Chevallier, Frédéric
Ganzenmüller, Raphael
Harper, Anna
Jain, Atul K.
Koven, Charles
Lienert, Sebastian
Lombardozzi, Danica
Maki, Takashi
Nabel, Julia E. M. S.
Nakamura, Takashi
Niwa, Yosuke
Peylin, Philippe
Poulter, Benjamin
Pugh, Thomas A. M.
Rödenbeck, Christian
Saeki, Tazu
Stocker, Benjamin
Viovy, Nicolas
Wiltshire, Andy
Zaehle, Sönke
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2022-01-06T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:16:37.392508
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:25082
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Kondo, Masayuki, Sitch, Stephen, Ciais, Philippe, Achard, Frédéric, Kato, Etsushi, Pongratz, Julia, Houghton, Richard A., Canadell, Josep G., Patra, Prabir K., Friedlingstein, Pierre, Li, Wei, Anthoni, Peter, Arneth, Almut, Chevallier, Frédéric, Ganzenmüller, Raphael, Harper, Anna, Jain, Atul K., Koven, Charles, Lienert, Sebastian, Lombardozzi, Danica, Maki, Takashi, Nabel, Julia E. M. S., Nakamura, Takashi, Niwa, Yosuke, Peylin, Philippe, Poulter, Benjamin, Pugh, Thomas A. M., Rödenbeck, Christian, Saeki, Tazu, Stocker, Benjamin, Viovy, Nicolas, Wiltshire, Andy, Zaehle, Sönke. (2022). Are land‐use change emissions in Southeast Asia decreasing or increasing?. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d74m983n. Accessed 26 January 2025.

Harvest Source