A Declining Trend in China’s Future Cropland‑N₂O Emissions Due to Reduced Cropland Area

Croplands are the largest anthropogenic source of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to the growing atmospheric N₂O burden. However, few studies provide a comprehensive depiction of future cropland-N₂O emissions on a national scale due to a lack of accurate cropland prediction data. Herein, we present a newly developed distributed land-use change prediction model for the high-precision prediction of national-scale land-use change. The high-precision land-use data provide an opportunity to elucidate how the changes in cropland area will affect the magnitude and spatial distribution of N₂O emissions from China’s croplands during 2020–2070. The results showed a declining trend in China’s total cropland-N₂O emissions from 0.44 ± 0.03 Tg N/year in 2020 to 0.39 ± 0.07 Tg N/year in 2070, consistent with a cropland area reduction from (1.78 ± 0.02) × 10⁸ ha to (1.40 ± 0.15) × 10⁸ ha. However, approximately 31% of all calculated cities in China would emit more than the present level. Furthermore, different land use and climate change scenarios would have important impacts on cropland-N₂O emissions. The Grain for Green Plan implemented in China would effectively control emissions by approximately 12%.