Forest Changes by Precipitation Zones in Northern China after the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program in China

China launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program (TNSFP) in 1978 northern to combat desertification and dust storms, but it is still controversial ecologically fragile arid semi-arid areas, which partly due uncertainties of monitoring spatial-temporal changes forest distribution. In this study, we aim provide an overall retrospect (i.e., gain loss) during 2007–2017, analyze different precipitation zones. We first generated annual maps at 30 m spatial resolution 2007–2017 through integrating Landsat PALSAR/PALSAR-2 data. found PALSAR/Landsat-based outperform other four existing products JAXA F/NF, FROM-GLC, GlobeLand30, NLCD-China) from either PALSAR or data, with a higher accuracy 96% ± 1%. The analyses forests showed substantial expansion 316,898 34,537 km2 2007 384,568 35,855 2017 central eastern areas. loss rate 35%) zones mean less than 400 mm areas) comparing that 25%) more humid areas), suggests lower surviving drylands. This study provides satellite-based evidence for zones, likely impacts on afforestation effectiveness should be considered future implementation ecological restoration projects like TNSFP.