Quantifying the effects of the ‘Internet plus Ecology’ framework on carbon sink in the digital age: a representative study of Ant Forest in China

Abstract

Ecological afforestation is a positive measure to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide and curb global warming. Ant Forest, a successful example of an ‘Internet + voluntary tree planting’ gamified app with more than 500 million users, has contributed to substantial progress on ecological afforestation in China. It represents a new model of transforming the environmental awareness and low-carbon actions of users (e.g. walking, sharing bikes, and reducing plastics and papers) into actual environmental benefits via planting trees. The implications of Ant Forest can provide useful references for linking ecosystem restoration with the internet worldwide. However, the spatial distribution and quantitative effects on the carbon sink of Ant Forest on a finer scale are not fully understood. In this study, 588 Ant Forest blocks with a total area of 136 314 ha were identified based on area of interest data using the web crawler approach. The forest blocks involved 20 cities in 7 provinces and included 11 varieties of trees. More than 90% of these forest blocks were located in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, and Gansu Provinces, and mostly shrubs were planted. Based on the Carnegie Ames Stanford approach model, the net primary productivity (NPP) of Ant Forest blocks was estimated. The simulated total annual NPP of all Ant Forest areas was 1.06 × 1011 gC, and an obvious increasing trend in NPP from 2016 to 2020 was observed, indicating effective carbon sequestration. We found that Hippophae rhamnoides and Caragana korshinskii had carbon sink advantages over other shrubs due to their higher NPP values per unit area. By strengthening individuals’ low-carbon awareness for reducing carbon emissions and increasing forest NPP to enhance the carbon sink, Ant Forest uses a representative and inspirational ‘Internet plus Ecology’ framework that has much significance for achieving carbon neutrality in China and tackling global climate change.