The Loess Plateau is a key region for national dual-carbon goals in China, yet it is aging, and climatic sensitivity increasingly constrains long-term carbon sink potential in its plantation forests. Here, we develop a spatially explicit framework integrating random forest classification, cluster analysis, LandTrendr-based age reconstruction, and a semi-empirical model to quantify plantation carbon dynamics. Plantations account for 59.74% of forest cover, with deciduous types dominating (71.46%) and an age structure heavily skewed toward maturity (91.6% >15 years). Ages of peak net ecosystem productivity decline systematically along precipitation gradients, occurring at 18 (deciduous) and 13 (evergreen) years under low rainfall (400 millimeters). Forward projections show that, without adaptive management, plantation carbon sinks could decline by 4.83 teragrams of carbon by 2060. These findings underscore the urgency of climate-informed forest strategies to sustain and enhance carbon sequestration across aging plantations on the Loess Plateau. Under current age structure and site conditions, plantation carbon sinks on the Loess Plateau face decline, making adaptive afforestation and management critical to prevent a 4.83 teragrams of carbon reduction by 2060, according to a spatially explicit framework.
Jia et al. (Wed,) studied this question.