Quantifying high-resolution carbon emissions driven by land use change in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Accurate research on carbon emission spatial distribution is vital for achieving carbon neutrality. Previous studies suffered from scale effects, demanding enhanced resolution. This study collected and computed land use carbon emission data for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). It also introduced a novel method to downscale this data into 30 m raster format using night light and NDVI data. The study showed a consistent annual rise in GBA land use carbon emissions, accompanied by increasing disparities. At the city level, emissions in the highest-ranking cities were 58 times higher than those in the lowest-ranking ones. Impervious land carbon emissions held over 90% sway over total carbon emissions, making them the primary driver of land use-related carbon emissions. Remarkably, high-emission zones, such as coastal cities Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, and Hong Kong, expanded outward, forming multi-tiered, high-density carbon areas, giving rise to an “∩” shape pattern. Carbon emission change rates from cropland were modest, characterized by a pattern of fluctuation. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation and K-means cluster analyses uncovered a noticeable spatial correlation among urban land use carbon emissions in the GBA. Consequently, a compelling case exists for enhancing inter-city cooperation to collectively pursue regional emission reduction objectives.