The opportunities and challenges associated with developing rubber plantations as carbon sinks in China

Rubber plantations are among the most important in the world's tropical regions. They play a positive role in carbon sequestration and in delaying climate change, supplying strategic resources of natural rubber (NR), and aiding in poverty alleviation and rural revitalisation. This paper reviews six methods of research on carbon sinks in rubber plantations: the biomass inventory method, the biomass conversion factor continuous function method, the trade potential of carbon sinks method, the calculation method for carbon storage of rubber latex, the eddy covariance method, and the remote sensing image model method. This study clarifies the carbon sink assessment and enhancement model for rubber plantations and describes the composition of the carbon pool, which includes the aboveground and belowground vegetation biomass carbon pools, litter carbon pool, latex carbon pool, and soil carbon pool. It also examines influencing factors such as tree age, global climate change, and human disturbance, as well as improvement pathways including afforestation, fertilisation, irrigation, and tapping, and evaluation methods like field surveys, positional observations, remote sensing monitoring, and model simulation. Research on carbon sequestration in rubber plantations faces challenges, including the unclear dynamics of carbon sources and sequestration, uncertain spatial and temporal patterns, and the long-term lack of accurate monitoring of carbon sinks and technologies for increasing sinks and reducing emissions. Future research should focus on the methodology of rubber plantation carbon sequestration projects, the dynamics of carbon sequestration, and the spatial allocation pattern of carbon sequestration in rubber plantations.