A spatially explicit reconstruction of forest cover in China over 1700-2000

- Identified the maximum distribution extent of forest in China without human activities;
- Developed a method to estimate forest weight of each 10 km grid by assessing land suitability for cultivation;
- By the method, the provincial forest area were transformed into forest cover dataset of China for 1700-2000;
- Comparisons indicated that our model can reproduce China forest cover for the past 300 years well.

The spatially explicit reconstruction of historical forest plays an important role in understanding human modifications of land surfaces and its environmental effects. Based on an analysis of the forest change history of China, we devised a reconstruction method for the historical forest cover in China. The core idea of the method is that the lands with high suitability for cultivation will be cultivated and deforested first, spreading to marginal lands with lower suitability for cultivation. By determining the possible maximum distribution extent of the forest, as well as devising the land suitability for cultivation assessment model and provincial forest area allocation model, we created 10 km forest cover maps of China for the years 1700 to 2000 with 10 year intervals. By comparison with satellite-based data in 2000, we found that the grids within 25% differences account for as much as 66.07% of all grids. The comparison with the historical documents-based data in northeast China indicated that the number of counties within 30% relative differences is 99, accounting for 74.44% of all counties. Therefore, the forest area allocation model we devised can accurately reproduce the spatial patterns of historical forest cover in China. Our reconstruction indicates that from 1700 to the 1960s, the deforestation mainly occurred in southwest China, the hilly regions of south China, the southeast of Gansu province, and northeast China; from the 1960s to 2000, the reforestation occurred in most traditional forested regions of China, particularly in the Tibet Plateau, hilly regions of south China and the Greater Khingan Mountains. The spatially explicit forest cover data sets we reconstructed can be used in global or regional climatic models to study the impact of land cover change on climate change.