Analyzing the spatial pattern of carbon metabolism and its response to change of urban form

•We analyzed the correlation between carbon metabolism and urban form.•Carbon sequestration changed against carbon emission in spatial.•Suburbs and outer suburbs was influenced and fell behind urban center.•Carbon metabolic patches was correlation with urban expansion and morphology.

Analyzing the correlation between carbon metabolism and urban form could provide new insight for low-carbon city design. The paper analyzed the spatial changes of urban carbon metabolism and also of the urban form from 1990 to 2010, using a combination of GIS method and landscape indices. The study showed that urban center in 2010 increase to 2.2 times that in 1990, which caused the expansion and extension of high carbon emission area in the southeast plain. The evolution of suburbs and outer suburbs was influenced by urban center and fell behind urban center, which caused the opposite change of the medium and low carbon emission area in the periphery of southeast center. The spatial distribution of carbon sequestration was affected by the policies during urbanization, which caused the shrink and fragmentation before 2000 and the recovery of the high carbon sequestration area after 2000. The study could be quite useful for regional land use planning for providing quantitative evaluation.