Spatially explicit carbon emissions at the county scale

Abstract The county is the basic economic spatial unit in China, and is also an integrated spatial carbon emitter. Focusing on a county, especially the developed counties in the Yangtze River Delta, it is of typical significance and enlightenment to conduct an in-depth and detailed dissection. The spatialization of a county's carbon emissions is crucial for exploring the spatial pattern of carbon emissions, which is fundamental information needed to reduce carbon emissions through the optimization or reorganization of the spatial pattern. This study systematically calculated the carbon emissions of Changxing county from four aspects (including energy; industrial processes and product use; agriculture, forestry, and other land use; and wastes), based on a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Subsequently, we constructed ten carbon emission spatial datasets with a resolution of 50–500 meters (m). According to landscape metrics and the information loss evaluation model, we analyzed the scale effect of carbon emissions at different resolutions and determined the optimal resolution of the spatial carbon emissions at the county scale to be a 200 m × 200 m grid. A reasonable scale of spatial carbon emission data provides support for low-carbon spatial planning and emission reduction policymaking.