Recently Prof. Dr. Heli Lu’s research team has made important research progress on monitoring forest degradation and measuring carbon emissions. This study has been selected as Featured Front Cover by the journal ‘Land Degradation & Development’ - an important international journal in the field of geosciences (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1099145x/2020/31/15).

It is estimated that greenhouse gas emissions caused by forest degradation account for 11% of the global total. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on “... the inclusion of policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, also known as REDD, in developing countries”. REDD encouraged developing country parties to contribute to mitigation actions in the forest sector by undertaking the following activities: reducing emissions from deforestation, reducing emissions from forest degradation, conservation of forest carbon stocks through the sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. However, forest degradation caused by human activities is intertwined with natural factors (such as climate fluctuations), making it difficult to monitor forest degradation and measure carbon emissions. For a long time, the lack of quantitative, spatially explicit, and statistically representative data on forest degradation is one of the biggest obstacles hindering the implementation of REDD.

Prof. Dr. Heli Lu's research team has focused on REDD measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) for a long time. This latest paper illustrates a Residual Trends (RESTREND) technique with a new baseline that isolates the human influence from natural climatic fluctuations to estimate emissions from forest degradation in countries across the tropics. Based on the recommended Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodology and framework, a pattern of high carbon density of 183 t C/ha in degraded areas, which was on average 1.5 times that of deforestation areas, was found. Further analysis revealed that the initial value of carbon stock in degraded areas was about 5.45 Pg C during 2002–2012. 17% of countries displayed values more than 100% of those from deforestation under the low degradation emission scenario, whereas 23% of countries displayed values less than 10% under the high degradation emission scenario. Thus, at a national level, with such an approach REDD could be further optimized and REDD targets could be achieved in an effective way. The study was selected as Featured Front Cover of Volume31, Issue15 on September 2020 by the journal ‘Land Degradation & Development’ under the title "Approaches to quantifying carbon emissions from degradation in pan-tropic forests—Implications for effective REDD monitoring".

The journal ‘Land Degradation & Development’ is published by Wiley Online Library (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). It is a peer-reviewed leading journal in the field of soil science and environmental sciences, and is also a Top Journal recognized by Henan University. Prof. Dr. Heli Lu, who is the first author and corresponding author of the paper, is a Distinguished Professor of Henan Province. Now he is undertaking research at College of Environment and Planning Collaborative and Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization, Henan University. This work is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China.