The Carbon Sink Conservation Areas (CSCAs) as a land use strategy for climate change mitigation

• Carbon Sink Conservation Areas (CSCAs) provide an effective land use strategy for achieving climate change mitigation goals. • The relationship between land use changes and terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle processes was quantitatively explored. • Strategically designated CSCAs can enhance carbon sequestration by an additional 1180–1900 Kt of carbon in the study area by 2035. • CSCAs demonstrate enduring efficacy in carbon sequestration. • Regardless of climate scenarios, CSCAs exhibit superior carbon sequestration potential over the existing Ecological Conservation Red Line (ECR) strategy. Achieving global “carbon neutrality” necessitates maximizing the carbon sequestration potential of terrestrial ecosystems. While the importance of enhancing terrestrial carbon sequestration is widely acknowledged, translating this goal into effective land use policies at local scales remains a significant challenge. This study proposes a novel, grid-based strategy for establishing Carbon Sink Conservation Areas (CSCAs) that explicitly considers the projected impacts of future climate change on carbon sequestration potential. Using an integrated modeling approach incorporating the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) and the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), we evaluated the carbon sequestration dynamics under various land use scenarios. Our results demonstrate that incorporating strategically designated CSCAs can enhance carbon sequestration by an additional 1,180–1,900 kt C over the simulation period. Analysis of interannual variability highlights a substantial increase in the carbon sequestration benefits of CSCAs strategy post-2027, indicating its long-term efficacy. Our analysis further indicates that, by 2035, future land use changes guided solely by China's Ecological Conservation Red Line (ECR) strategy are projected to become a carbon source. In contrast, adopting CSCAs can reverse this trajectory, enabling land use across the entire region to function as a carbon sink. These findings provide a robust scientific basis for informing land use planning and policy decisions aimed at mitigating climate change through enhanced terrestrial carbon sequestration.