Carbon budget from forest land use and management in Central Asia during 1961–2010

•We developed a localized bookkeeping model to estimate carbon fluxes.•We estimated carbon fluxes from forestry activities in Kazakhstan and Xinjiang.•The forestry activities in both regions acted as carbon sinks during 1961–2010.•The forestry regimes can significantly affect the carbon fluxes in Central Asia.

The carbon budget that was derived from forest land use has been extensively explored in most regions/countries of the Northern Hemisphere but is poorly documented in Central Asia. In this study, we proposed a localized bookkeeping model and estimated the sources and sinks of carbon from forest land use and managements between 1961 and 2010 in two arid regions of Central Asia, e.g., Kazakhstan and Xinjiang, China. The results indicate that the forest land use in these two regions acted as a carbon sink, with a total carbon sequestration of 43.27 Tg and 20.74 Tg respectively. Accelerated afforestation led to strong carbon sequestration (47.43 Tg in Xinjiang and 34.29 Tg in Kazakhstan) and forest fire were the main carbon sources (2.99 Tg in Xinjiang and 12.51 in Kazakhstan) in both regions. Although there were large amounts of wood production from logging, the carbon flux from this activity was small due to the joint action of wood oxidization and trees recovery. Compared with logging, deforestation area for cultivation was much smaller, but its carbon emission was considerable. The differences on the forestry regimes such as afforestation incentives, logging and fire prohibitions in these two regions were significant, resulting in different effects on their carbon fluxes. This study elucidates the carbon function of forest land use in Central Asia and further deepens our understanding of the influence of forest land use on the global carbon balance.