Anthropogenic activities dominated tropical forest carbon balance in two contrary ways over the Greater Mekong Subregion in the 21st century

Abstract The tropical forest carbon (C) balance threatened by extensive socio‐economic development in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in Asia is a notable data gap and remains contentious. Here we generated a long‐term spatially quantified assessment of changes in forests and C stocks from 1999 to 2019 at a spatial resolution of 30 m, based on multiple streams of state‐of‐the‐art high‐resolution satellite imagery and in situ observations. Our results show that (i) about 0.54 million square kilometers (21.0% of the region) experienced forest cover transitions with a net increase in forest cover by 4.3% (0.11 million square kilometers, equivalent to 0.31 petagram of C [Pg C] stocks); (ii) forest losses mainly in Cambodia, Thailand, and in the south of Vietnam, were also counteracted by forest gains in China due mainly to afforestation; and (iii) at the national level during the study period an increase in both C stocks and C sequestration (net C gain of 0.087 Pg C) in China from new plantation, offset anthropogenetic emissions (net C loss of 0.074 Pg C) mainly in Cambodia and Thailand from deforestation. Political, social, and economic factors significantly influenced forest cover change and C sequestration in the GMS, positively in China while negatively in other countries, especially in Cambodia and Thailand. These findings have implications on national strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation in other hotspots of tropical forests.