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Beyond environmental sustainability: Low‐carbon land use policies can contribute to the realization of comprehensive sustainable development

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  • Ke Liu
  • Peng Cheng
  • Anlu Zhang
  • Sixian Qin
  • Xue Zhang

Abstract

In the context of climate change and sustainable development, there has been numerous researches studying the influence of land use policies on carbon sequestration. However, most of them focus on specific experimental area to explore the impact of land use policies on carbon fixation, or their impacts on a certain aspect, lacking the comprehensive explanation of both the internal influence mechanism and external effects. Therefore, this article presents a comprehensive review and the results show that scientific land use policies have the capacity of increasing net carbon sinks and soil organic carbon to realize environmental sustainability. In addition, these low‐carbon land use policies can not only bring out this climate change mitigation influence, but also have external effects on cities sustainable development, food security, ecological protection, and economic disparities to promote comprehensive sustainable development. However, if these policies fail to adapt to local natural and socio‐economic conditions, or overlook the potential negative impacts they could pose, these policies cannot facilitate the achievement of comprehensive sustainable development and could even impede this progress.

Suggested Citation

  • Ke Liu & Peng Cheng & Anlu Zhang & Sixian Qin & Xue Zhang, 2025. "Beyond environmental sustainability: Low‐carbon land use policies can contribute to the realization of comprehensive sustainable development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 1315-1332, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:1:p:1315-1332
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.3180
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