High resolution carbon dioxide emission gridded data for China derived from point sources.

A high spatial resolution carbon dioxide (CO2) emission map of China is proving to be essential for China's carbon cycle research and carbon reduction strategies given the current low quality of CO2 emission data and the inconsistencies in data quality between different regions. Ten km resolution CO2 emission gridded data has been built up for China based on point emission sources and other supporting data. The predominance of emissions from industrial point sources (84% of total emissions) in China supports the use of bottom-up methodology. The resultant emission map is informative and proved to be more spatially accurate than the EDGAR data. Spatial distribution of CO2 emissions in China is highly unbalanced and has positive spatial autocorrelation. The spatial pattern is mainly influenced by key cities and key regions, i.e., the Jing-Jin-Ji region, the Yangtze River delta region, and the Pearl River delta region. The emission map indicated that the supervision of 1% of total land could enable the management of about 70% of emissions in China.