Comparison of Spatialization Process of
Carbon Emissions
Zhou, Y. L.1 Gang, S.1,2* Xu, Y. T.3,4 Li, J. Z.5 Xiao, X.1 Xue, B.3
1. Key Laboratory of Regional Environment and Eco-Remediation
(Shenyang University), Ministry of Education, Shenyang 110044, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Black Soil Evolution and Ecological
Effect, Liaoning Province, Shenyang 110034, China;
3. Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China;
4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
100049, China;
5. School of city and environment, Xuchang University, Xuchang
461000, China
Abstract: With the goals of
carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, carbon emissions have gradually become a
key area of research in environmental science and are of great importance for
climate change and sustainable development. Spatialization of carbon data can
visually show the differences in emissions between industries and regions. High
spatio-temporal resolution data can be used to build a long-time series atlas
of carbon emissions, which provides data support for carbon emission monitoring
and carbon cycle research. Therefore, starting from the data form and response
scale, this paper explains the spatialization process of carbon emissions based
on nighttime lighting (NTL) and social statistics data, summarizes the
different spatialization methods in different scenarios of carbon emissions
change, and analyzes how to spatially visualize carbon emissions at different
scales from the perspective of country, province and city. Finally, it
discusses the problems encountered in this process and makes suggestions that
provide a reference for the efficient implementation of carbon reduction
policies.
Keywords: carbon emissions; spatialization; data processing
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3974/geodp.2024.02.12
CSTR: https://cstr.escience.org.cn/CSTR:20146.14.2024.02.12
1 Introduction
Global climate change has
become one of the greatest challenges to human development. The Paris Agreement[1],
as a major commitment by countries to address climate change, has become a
critical component in building a community with a shared future for humanity[2].
Therefore, accurate measurement of carbon emissions in the research sector will
contribute to the implementation of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.
As the world??s largest carbon emitter[3], China??s carbon emissions
come mainly from sectors such as electricity[4], transportation[5],
agriculture[6], construction[7] and industrial production[8].
Carbon data can be used to measure greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide,
produced by individuals,
organisations,
or regions during production and consumption processes. Different industries
have their corresponding carbon emissions data, and different regional scales
also have corresponding carbon data, such as national carbon data list,
provincial carbon data list, city carbon data list, and county carbon data
list. Different regional scales also have corresponding carbon data, such as
national provincial city and county carbon data. Spatialization of carbon
emissions data can visually display the differences in carbon emissions across
different geographical areas[9], spatial scales[10,11]
and industries[12], making it easier for researchers to answer
questions from a geographical perspective, such as which regions have the most
effective carbon emission reduction and which industries have urgent carbon reduction
needs, which is also integrated with multi-source data such as GDP, POI,
population, land use, and transportation networks. The spatialization process
also involves data transformation issues, such as refining large-scale data to
small-scale areas and simulating area-source carbon emissions from point-source
carbon data. Clarifying the spatialization mechanism of carbon data will help
to formulate feasible carbon emission reduction plans. Therefore, this paper
focuses on the spatialization of carbon emissions data, systematically reviews
the relevant literature on carbon data processing, summaries the data
processing scenarios and corresponding methods involved, and compares carbon
emissions data processing in cross-scale application contexts from both
technical and application perspectives, so as to provide a reference for the
related research involving carbon data processing research.
2 Carbon Emission Data
Carbon
emissions are often used as a shorthand for greenhouse gas emissions, and this
paper focuses on carbon dioxide emissions. From a societal perspective, carbon
emissions data can be obtained from public government data platform, research
institutions and corporate organizations. Carbon data includes emission
volumes, carbon emission intensity and emission inventories. Emissions data can
describe the carbon emissions generated by a certain region, industry or activity,
while carbon intensity measures emissions per unit of GDP. Organizations
calculate their direct and indirect emissions from different stages of production
and daily activities to create a carbon inventory.
From a
geoscience perspectives, carbon data collection can be broadly divided into
satellite remote sensing and social statistics[13]. Remote sensing
satellites provide data on the global distribution data greenhouse gases and
terrestrial carbon , with advantages such as stability, wide spatial coverage,
and cost-effectiveness. Current remote sensing satellites focusing on carbon
gas monitoring include OCO-2, GOSAT, and TanSat. However, these data can be
influenced by atmospheric circulation, leading to significant errors when analyzing
carbon emissions at smaller scales, such as counties or villages. Research by
scholars like Elvidge[14] and Doll[15] has shown a
significant correlation between nighttime light intensity and carbon emissions.
Commonly used nighttime light remote sensing satellites include the U.S. Soumi
NPP and DMSP-OLS and the Luojia-1 satellite led by a team from Wuhan
University, as shown in Table 1. As noted by Yu[16], DMSP-OLS data
suffer from saturation problems, while NPP-VIIRS provides higher resolution and
better imaging. For small-scale studies, nighttime light data from Luojia-1
offers advantages over the other satellites and correlates well with carbon
emissions[17]. Nighttime light data provide researchers with
comprehensive and continuous carbon emission data, but factors such as regional
development, population density, and industrial park distribution can affect
the accuracy of carbon emissions derived from these data. Therefore, nighttime
light data is often used in conjunction with other data sources. Social
statistical data on carbon emissions can be used for large-scale simulations of
regional carbon emissions. In GIS, these data can be represented as point data,
line data, or polygon data[18].
Table 1 Commonly used nighttime light remote sensing satellites
Satellite name
|
Country
|
Acquisition Pathway
|
Launch year
|
Data products
|
Spatial resolution
|
Data characteristics
|
DMSP-OLS
|
USA
|
NOAA
|
DMSP 5D-3F15
|
1999
|
Annual composite stable light data (1992–2013)
|
–1000 m
|
Widely
used, the resulting product remains one of the most widely applied nighttime
light remote sensing datasets to date. However, affected by sensor
limitations, the maximum brightness of the light signal is capped at 63,
leading to data saturation issues. This poses challenges for long-term series
analysis and issues like the ??blooming effect?? on the light boundary
|
DMSP 5D-3F16
|
2001
|
DMSP 5D-3F17
|
2006
|
DMSP 5D-3F18
|
2009
|
NPP-VIIRS
|
USA
|
NOAA
|
2011
|
Annual composite data (2015, 2016)
|
–500 m
|
Compared
to DMSP-OLS, it offers higher spatial resolution and better imaging effects,
which are beneficial for studying finer regional scales. However, the short
temporal resolution hasn??t fully addressed issues like removing abnormal
light signals and background noise
|
Monthly composite data (April 2012 to present)
|
Nighttime original data (January 19, 2012 to present)
|
–750 m
|
Luojia-1
|
China
|
Luojia-1 official website
|
2018
|
Original data (produced from June 2018)
|
–130 m
|
Higher spatial resolution than DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS. Ideally, it can
complete global nighttime light remote sensing data collection within 15 days
|
3 Spatial Processing of Carbon
Emission Data
The study of carbon emissions and its temporal and spatial
changes is of great significance for China??s development. The spatialization of carbon emissions data can be seen as a process
of making abstract data more concrete. Whether using remote sensing data to
infer regional carbon emissions or simulating them based on point, line, and
polygon data, spatial proxy parameters are often selected to better achieve
data spatialization. In this process, classic geographic theories such as
Tobler??s First Law of Geography, spatial spillover effects, and spatial
interpolation are widely used to help explain the spatio-temporal variations in carbon emission
intensity.
3.1 Carbon Emission Spatialization Analysis Based on Nighttime Light
Data
Nighttime
light remote sensing satellites can detect urban lighting. Shi et al.[19] noted that the
pixel DN values of nighttime light data are positively correlated with CO2
emissions at the corresponding locations, so nighttime light data can evaluate
regional carbon emissions at the grid level. Different satellites also have
their own advantages. For example, NPP-VIIRS offers higher resolution and
better timeliness than DMSP-OLS data, but DMSP-OLS data have a longer time
span, allowing for deeper time-series research. The DMSP-OLS-like nighttime
light remote sensing dataset for China is published by Shi??s team from
Southwest University, and its accuracy in evaluating social indicators has been
validated as superior to these two types of data[20]. In practical applications
of carbon emission spatialization, nighttime light data are often combined with
energy data and population density data. Zhang et al.[17] spatialized carbon emissions in Xi??an using
nighttime light data and energy statistics as the basis, with population data
as a weighting factor. Wei et al.[21]
used nighttime light data and population data to simulate carbon emissions
across China.
The general
process of spatialising carbon emissions based on nighttime light data includes
the following steps: (a) obtaining and pre-processing nighttime light data for
the study area according to the research scale; (b) integrating population
density, energy consumption, and land use data to build a model that produces
spatialized carbon emissions; (c) data validation; (d) result analysis. In step
(c), nighttime light data and carbon emission statistics are often used to
construct estimation models, and the model with the best fit is selected to
establish the relationship between the two. Alternatively, the Root Mean Square
Error (RMSE) and Mean Relative Error (MRE) can be obtained by comparing the
estimated carbon emissions for a particular industry with the total carbon
emissions of that industry, thus assessing data accuracy and exploring regional
carbon emissions. There are also studies[22] that verify the
accuracy of the data by comparing it with the carbon emissions assigned by the
International Carbon Database. Related research[23] shows that when
establishing a mathematical relationship between energy consumption and
nighttime light, linear relationships have a relatively optimal fit. When
constructing models for estimating polynomial functions, higher-order
polynomials tend to provide better fits[17]. The R2 values of the fitting
formulae often range from 0.6 to 1[24–27], or p < 0.01[28], indicating good accuracy of the data
results.
3.2 Carbon Emission Spatialization Analysis Based on Social Statistics
Data
Spatial
interpolation can be applied to original carbon emission point data obtained
from social statistics. Combined with methods such as cluster analysis and hot
spot analysis, this approach helps to identify high and low carbon emission
areas and understand the spatial distribution characteristics and driving
factors of carbon emissions. Spatial interpolation methods include inverse
distance weighting (IDW), Thiessen polygons, trend surface, and kriging. Kriging interpolation is often used to process
carbon data to smallscales such as counties, while inverse distance weighting
is commonly used for provincial and city data, as shown in Table 2. It should
be noted that inverse distance weighting is very sensitive to the choice of
weighting function, and if the data are unevenly distributed, abnormal results
may occur. The interpolation result is sensitive to extreme values, and the
variance of the predicted value cannot be estimated. Therefore, the
interpolation effect of this method is better when the known points are evenly
distributed. Kriging, a geostatistical method, calculates the weights of each
measured point through the semi-variogram function, allowing for adjustable
model parameters that can be set according to the nature of the regionalized
variables. At the same time, the error and accuracy of the results can be
dictated, which is suitable for the factors with correlation of the
regionalized variables. In reviewing the literature, the use of traditional simple
interpolation methods is more common in domestic studies than in international
research. Some scholars believe that relying solely on traditional interpolation
methods to obtain grids may lead to large errors. Therefore, they modify the
parameters of traditional methods[41] or establish new models[38]
to convert point data into area data. Cross-validation of results obtained by
different methods in different study areas is necessary to ensure accuracy.
When collecting raw carbon emissions data based
on social statistics, researchers often use either a top-down or bottom-up
approach to construct spatialized carbon emissions datasets, as shown in Figure
1. In the former, the total carbon emissions are divided into grid units
according to the weight ratio of population, regional development level and
other factors. This method has a wide range of applications and is of great
value for regions with few carbon emissions data (Figure 2a). The latter is a
grid construction method integrated
Table 2 Application of interpolation methods in domestic and
international data processing
Reference
|
Research area
|
Research method
|
Content
|
Yan (2018)[29]
|
Huailai County
|
Kriging
|
Spatial
distribution of land carbon emissions in Huailai County
|
Su et al. (2011)[30]
|
Shaanxi Province
|
IDW
|
Analyzed
the spatial differences and variations in carbon emissions across different
regions in Shaanxi Province
|
Guo et al. (2016) [31]
|
Jiangsu Province
|
Kriging
|
Interpolated
the total carbon emissions of each county
|
Kong
(2018)[32]
|
Lanzhou City
|
IDW
|
Spatial
distribution of industrial carbon emissions in Lanzhou City
|
Yuan et al.(2021)[33]
|
Jinan City
|
Kriging
|
Spatial
distribution characteristics of transportation carbon emissions in Jinan City
|
Rong et al. (2018)[34]
|
Kaifeng City
|
IDW
|
Visualization
of the spatial distribution of daily carbon emissions in Kaifeng City
|
Wu
(2016)[35]
|
China
|
IDW
|
Modeled
the spatial distribution of total carbon emissions in China from 1990 to 2012
|
Huang
et al. (2015)[36]
|
Wuhan City
|
Kriging
|
Trend
prediction of household carbon emissions in Wuhan City
|
Mohit
et al. (2006)[37]
|
India
|
G-SMILE
|
A
statistical model using grid data to achieve the required resolution for
carbon emission distribution
|
Sanayanbi
et al. (2017)[38]
|
India
|
IDW and Kriging
|
Studied
the spatial distribution of ET0 in India, comparing the precision
of inverse distance weighting with Kriging methods
|
Vahid et al. (2024)[39]
|
Australia
|
Linear Interpolation
|
Explored
the precision of carbon emission distribution, using this method to
supplement missing data for carbon emission estimation
|
Marko
et al. (2023)[40]
|
Belgrade
|
Bilinear Interpolation
|
Established
a bilinear interpolation model for estimating vehicle tailpipe emissions
|
with the idea of aggregation. The principle is to collect
carbon emission information of different departments in the research area, grid
them and then overlap them to form a comprehensive grid map, as shown in Figure
2. Compared with the former approach, the bottom-up method is more complex and
requires more raw data to support carbon emission calculations for different
sectors, but it provides higher accuracy with relatively smaller errors[43].
Figure
1 Technical road map of top-down and bottom-up
The spatial grid
method can further refine the spatial distribution of carbon emissions data,
allowing visualization at specific spatial resolutions and creating a spatially
continuous carbon emissions dataset. This allows more detailed analysis of
regional carbon emission patterns. Spatially allocating carbon emissions in
small areas requires taking into account various factors such as population density,
traffic flow and land use , and setting appropriate weighting coefficients to
simulate a carbon emission distribution grid that closely reflects reality. This process can
take a top-down approach (Figure 2b), where carbon emissions data are distributed
by downscaling to produce spatial distribution maps of regional energy
consumption. This method typically integrates GIS with one or more
cross-referenced datasets, such as POI , population density, traffic flow, land
use, and nighttime light data, to allocate emissions to grids. For example,
Wang et al.[44] utilized a
series of spatial proxy data to develop a gridded inventory that reflects the
spatial patterns of carbon emissions in Hangzhou.
3.3 Differences and
Connections between Spatialization of Carbon Emissions Based on Nighttime Light
Data and Social Statistics Data
Figure 2 Spatialization of carbon emissions based
on nighttime light data and social statistics data
|
The differences between the two are as follows: (a) In
terms of data sources, nighttime light data is primarily obtained through
remote sensing techniques that capture surface illumination at night, while social
statistics data is derived from socio-economic indicators. (b) The former
performs better in areas with dense energy consumption and economic activities,
while the latter has more potential to reflect carbon emissions in rural and
other less developed regions. (c) Nighttime light data can help researchers
quickly identify areas with a relatively higher intensity of economic activity,
whereas social statistics data focus more on identifying specific emission
sources.
4 Application
Scenarios of Carbon Emission Spatialization from a Technical Perspective
In economic research, line or bar graphs are often used to
present the temporal and spatial trends of regional carbon emissions[45].
However, from a geoscientific perspective, it is somewhat counterintuitive to
represent changes in carbon emissions only with numerical values, and
geographical base maps are usually used to depict specific information such as
changes in carbon emissions. Scholars, at home and abroad have conducted
extensive research on the spatial differentiation of carbon emissions,
influencing factors, change mechanisms, and driving factors at different
scales, such as national, provincial and regional, using nighttime light data.
4.1 Research Subjects
Estimation of land use carbon emissions typically involves
socio-economic data, fossil fuel consumption, remote sensing data of land cover
and nighttime light DN values, combined with spatial statistical analysis,
geographic detectors, or geographically weighted regression methods. For
example, Niu et al.[46] studied
carbon emissions from land use and influencing factors in the Changsha Zhuzhou
Xiangtan area, using nighttime light brightness values and energy consumption
to build equations with an R2
greater than 0.85. Su et al.[47] found a strong correlation between carbon emissions from
energy consumption and nighttime light index in Shanxi Province, with an R2 of 0.991,4. Grid methods are often used to divide regions,
which helps to highlight regional differences in carbon emissions. Wang et al.[48] used the area of different land types
multiplied by corresponding carbon emission coefficients to construct a
regional grid and found an increasing trend in carbon emissions in the Nansi
Lake Basin. Some studies also incorporate time series data to investigate the
temporal and spatial differentiation within regions. For instance, Deng et al.[49] used remote sensing imagery
and socio-economic data from different years to reveal the temporal and spatial
evolution and driving factors of carbon emissions from land use in Wuhan. Liu et al.[50] constructed a fitting model based on
nighttime light data and statistical data from 2012 to 2021 to depict the
spatio-temporal evolution of carbon emissions in seven eastern provinces and
cities. In short, when exploring carbon emissions from land use, a fitting
equation is often constructed to reflect the fitting degree between remote sensing
data and regional carbon emissions, usually R2 > 0.8. The accuracy of the
data used in this study is lower than that use in the study of changes in
carbon emissions from land use within provinces, cities or counties. The former
usually gives different colors to different large areas in the form of spatial
results, while the latter can reflect regional emission hot spots more finely.
The agriculture,
energy and transport sectors have made important contributions to
China??s rapid economic development,but are also significant
sources of carbon dioxide emissions. Agricultural research often uses data on
crop area and crop type to estimate carbon emission intensity. For example, Cui
et al.[51] used crop planting area data and exploratory spatial data
analysis to visualize agricultural carbon emissions in Hebei Province. In the
energy sector, the focus is on the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics.
Hao et al.[52] simulated
energy carbon emissions in combination with nighttime lighting data and statistical
data and found that carbon emissions in most regions changed little. In the
transportation sector, studies have examined carbon emission distribution
patterns based on different road networks, such as Dai et al.[53] who visualized
carbon emissions in Shandong Province??s expressway network. Others have studied
carbon emissions from motor vehicles, such as Wang et al.[54] who obtained
a high accurate inventory of vehicle carbon emissions based on traffic
statistics. Different sectors have different data characteristics. Spatialization
research in the agricultural sector and data from the energy sector are often
area-based; data from the transport sector may be tripe or area-based,
depending on the environment, specifications, and power sources of the vehicles
used.
4.2 Spatial Scope
With the continuous deepening of research, carbon emission
grid data has evolved from annual data to near-real-time daily data[55], and the
spatial resolution has improved from 1º ?? 1º[56] and 0.25º ?? 0.25º resolution datasets to 0.1º ??
0.1º grids[57]. In studies investigating the spatial distribution of
national carbon emissions, existing research often uses provinces as the basic
unit, starting from a national perspective to study the spatial distribution of
carbon emissions in the energy consumption sector. Nighttime light data and
population data are typically used as a basis, and spatial interpolation
methods are employed to fill missing values, distributing carbon emissions to
grid scales[58]. Wang[59] integrated population, GDP, and nighttime light
data, combined with correlation and regression analysis, to construct a
cross-scale spatial model of China's carbon emissions. At the provincial scale,
counties are often used as the smallest unit to study the spatial patterns of
carbon emissions. Studies also construct highly fitting equations to reveal the
spatial variation patterns of carbon emissions within regions. Gu et al.[60] constructed a
function representing energy consumption carbon emissions based on nighttime
light pixel values, and then used emission inventories to calculate and
simulate the energy consumption carbon emissions in Henan Province. Xie et al.[61] constructed a spatial distribution map of greenhouse gas
emissions on a 200 m ?? 200 m grid and explored the differences in greenhouse
gas emission levels in the study area. Current regional-scale research mainly
involves regions such as the Lanxi urban agglomeration[62], the Harbin Changcheng urban agglomeration[63], and the Yangtze River Economic Belt[64]. Yang et
al.[65] used a bottom-up method to calculate pollutant emissions
and show the spatial distribution of air pollutants in the Pearl River Delta
region. Research institutes at city level require higher data accuracy and
often use social statistical data such as population density, POI, and GDP, as
well as related remote sensing data. Combined with carbon emission measurement
methods such as ??top-down?? and ??bottom-up??, they rely on GIS platforms to
obtain spatial distribution of carbon emissions in different industry backgrounds.
For instance, Li et al.[66] proposed a
method for establishing a high spatial resolution carbon emission inventory at
the city level, and established a 1 km ?? 1 km carbon emission inventory for Yingkou City.
Both nighttime light-based and social statistics-based
methods can spatialize carbon emission intensity at national, provincial, and
municipal scales. When selecting data, it is important to clarify the research
scope and topic in order to select appropriate resolution data. Large spatial
resolutions are often required to study macroscopic distributional characteristics.
When studying emission details at the city or smaller scale, higher resolution
data are usually selected to construct grids of sizes such as 1km ?? 1km or 200m ?? 200m. If the original data resolution is too low to
reflect differences in distribution of carbon emissions between regions,
top-down methods based on social statistics can be used to achieve more
accurate results.
5 Discussion
5.1 Suggestions
First, there is often a lack of validation accuracy in
regression modelling. When studying regional carbon emissions based on
nighttime light data, a common approach is to estimate emissions using
regression modelling. However, many researchers overlook the validation of
regression accuracy when analyzing spatial and temporal scales. Simple
regression only quantifies the relationship between data on temporal or spatial
scales, without considering the combined effects of multiple factors. The
scientific community generally agrees that using statistical data to estimate
carbon emissions is more comprehensive. Some scientists have also questioned
the results of studies that rely solely on nighttime light data for small-scale
regions[52]. Meanwhile, other research suggests that constructing
models to reverse-engineer the relationship between light intensity and carbon
emissions is a crucial direction for future carbon accounting methods[67]. Therefore,
models that couple nighttime light with other factors should be developed and
validated by comparison.
Second, the top-down approach often lacks spatial
information in the carbon emissions data used. When grid-mapping carbon
emissions for large regions, data for smaller areas may be overly smoothed,
failing to reflect local variations in emissions. Conversely, while the
bottom-up approach offers higher accuracy, it requires more extensive raw data
accumulation. In cases where statistical data are incomplete or imprecise, combining
both top-down and bottom-up methods, supplemented by spatial interpolation, can
adjust the values within spatial grids, resulting in more accurate carbon
emission maps.
Thirdly, current research often overlooks the differences
in the principles behind different spatial interpolation methods and directly
chooses a particular method to simulate missing data. However, choosing the
wrong interpolation method in different research contexts can lead to
discrepancies between predicted and actual values, resulting in significant
errors in simulated spatial carbon emission results. This discrepancy is particularly
pronounced when studying the spatial distribution of carbon emissions at the
county level or smaller scales. Therefore, in such cases, the choice of spatial
interpolation methods is crucial, and multi-source data should be integrated
with cross-validation to achieve the highest degree of fit for spatial
prediction surfaces of carbon emissions.
Finally, carbon dioxide emissions and transfers are
strongly influenced by spatial and geographical factors. As for different
issues, it is essential to consider the impact of human-environment
relationships, geographical elements, terrain or climatic conditions on the
study factors. Investigating the effects of different factors on the transfer
of carbon emission and constructing targeted spatial distribution models will
help to simulate high-precision real-time monitoring networks for carbon
emissions, improve the understanding and management of air quality issues, and
promote air pollution control and emission reduction measures. When
interpolating carbon emissions at small scales, different emission scenarios
should be considered to minimize errors due to differences in building types.
At larger scales, integration of data from multiple sources can reduce errors
and uncertainties caused by low resolution.
5.2 Outlook
First, more research should be done on small or micro-scale
carbon emissions. Compared to larger regions, smaller scales such as villages
and campuses have greater potential to reduce emissions and can serve as
pioneers in exploring innovative emission reduction technologies and models.
Therefore, future research should explore the differences in the distribution
of carbon emissions within small scales and between regions. An accurate
understanding of the spatial flow of carbon emissions can enable more targeted
point-to-point emission reduction strategies and provide scientific evidence
for governments to formulate more targeted reduction policies based on local
conditions.
Second, the presentation of carbon emissions on maps needs
to be refined. Most current studies use administrative regions at the
provincial or municipal level as the unit of analysis, with entire regions
being coloured according to sectoral or industrial emissions. However, this approach
does not effectively represent the specific locations of industries or sectors
within the administrative region. Grid-based approaches can more accurately
capture the spatial distribution and trends of carbon emissions, highlighting
the gradient changes in emission intensity within the area. However, few
studies have used this refined grid-based approach. Therefore, future research
on regional carbon emissions should place greater emphasis on the detailed
distribution of study objects on maps and the detailed representation of how
emissions decrease with increasing distance from the source.
Author
Contributions
Xue, B. and Gang, S. conceived the overall
design of the study. Zhou, Y. L. drafted the manuscript. Zhou, Y. L. and Xu, Y.
T. conducted data and literature collection and analysis. Xiao, X. and Li, J.
Z. revised the manuscript.
Conflicts
of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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