Reforestation policies around 2000 in southern China led to forest densification and expansion in the 2010s

Abstract Forest expansion has been observed in China over the past decades, but typically applied coarse resolution satellite data does not reveal spatial details about China’s forest transition. By using three decades of observations at a 30-m resolution, we here complex spatiotemporal patterns individual stands forming return history southern China. We calculate age, densification rates, and annual fragmentation show that area surge around 2010 is result trees planted after 2000 formed dense forests decade later. document old 1980s were mostly fragmented into scattered patches located on mountain tops, rapidly expanded downhill by 729,540 km 2 alleviated clear-cut logging pressure from forests. Our study provides detailed documentation for country had largely deforested ago.