Impacts of land use/cover change on carbon storage in the Yangtze River Delta region from a complex network perspective

Land use/cover change (LUCC) is the predominant reason for causing variations in carbon storage (C storage) within the terrestrial ecosystem, so it is highly significant to investigate the influence of LUCC on C storage with respect to fulfilling the target of carbon neutrality. Through the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model, this paper construes the variations of C storage in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region between 2010 and 2020, along with the reaction to LUCC from a complex network perspective. The results are listed below: (1) The YRD region mainly consisted of forests and croplands from 2010 to 2020. (2) The terrestrial ecosystem in the YRD region can establish a directed network with land use type as node, carbon storage transfer as edge, and carbon storage transfer amount as weight, containing node 6 and edge 15. (3) By analyzing network characteristics and its carbon storage transfer, the variations in forest, cropland, and construction land exerted the most significant effect on the variation of regional carbon storage. The primary reason for reduced C storage is the conversion of forest and cropland to construction land.