Economic development and ecological restoration guided by policies has had a profound impact on the relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption in the past few decades. Exploring the relationship in specific study areas is necessary to support regional planning for sustainability. In this study, we analyzed the equilibrium relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption driven by economic development and ecological restoration from 1995 to 2018 in Northeast China. We quantified the supply and consumption of three critical ecosystem services, food production, water yield and atmospheric regulation, and identified the main areas for supply and consumption of ecosystem services. We measured the quantity and spatial equilibrium relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption driven by economic development and ecological restoration at economic megaregion scale. We found the new industrial structure shaped by regional economic development policies formed the new ecosystem service consumer demand. The development of agricultural industry not only resulted in the increase of water consumption, but also the scope of water consumption was expanded in Northeast China. The development of tertiary industry causes the change of atmospheric regulation consumption in urban agglomeration. What’s more, economic development exacerbated imbalances in the supply and consumption of ecosystem services. The unbalanced areas where food supply was less than consumption were in the clusters of Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, and coastal cities. Since food products can circulate freely through the market, this imbalance will not fundamentally affect regional food security, but will improve the level of agricultural industrialization and scale. The implementation of the grain economic policy caused the rapid expansion of unbalanced areas where water supply was less than consumption. The incredible space mismatch between the supply and consumption of ecosystem services still exists for a long time. However, the implementation of the ecological restoration didn’t effectively solve the problem of insatiable ecosystem service consumption. The ecosystem service consumption brought by economic development need to be given the utmost attention when formulating ecological restoration policies and economic development policies. The results can provide insights for enhancing economic sustainability in northeast china, as well other economic megaregion with similar characteristics throughout the world.

Afforestation is a promising nature-based climate solution for mitigating climate change, but it is subject to a complex web of biophysical, cost-benefit, market, and policy processes. Although its biophysical feasibility has been established, the cost, market, and policy constraints that affect climate change mitigation through afforestation are still unclear. Here, we estimate such cost, market, and policy constraints on the basis of biophysical feasibility. Our findings reveal that implementation costs are a more relevant constraint than opportunity costs on mitigating climate change through afforestation. The China Certified Emission Reduction market currently provides only a 0.308 % incentive for climate change mitigation through afforestation, due to market access constraints. The current market prices of China Certified Emission Reduction, China Carbon Emissions Trading Exchange, and Nature Based Carbon Offset in Voluntary Carbon Market constrain 88.15 %, 87.95 %, and 85.75 % of CO₂ removal actions through afforestation, compared to the carbon price scenario (US$62.97 tCO₂^-1) of the EU Emissions Trading System. Moreover, land policy under the scenarios of prohibiting conversion of cultivated land to forest and forest restoration in degraded areas exhibit 8.87-29.59 % and 65.16-74.10 % constraints, respectively, on mitigating climate change through afforestation compared to land-use freedom conversion scenarios from 2020 to 2060. Thus, enhancing the incentive price of CO₂ removal, addressing the market access barrier, strengthening cooperation between global carbon markets, and exploring carbon-neutral and food multi-oriented land policies can be valuable sources of mitigation efforts over the next 40 years.

Carbon removal and emission reductions simultaneously play a decisive role in carbon neutrality. Yet, different from the structural upgrades in emission reduction, carbon removal through afforestation often heavily relies on specific geographical space. Although carbon neutrality pathways that overlook spatial details play a significant role, the challenge of spatiotemporal equilibrium linked with carbon neutrality exacerbates the economic risks of joint abatement by both parties. Here, we assessed cost-optimal pathways for afforestation in China up to 2060 by incorporating marginal abatement cost curves derived from spatial decomposition of afforestation into a dynamic multi-model analysis of joint abatement. Our findings reveal that afforestation needs to play an increasingly important role in climate mitigation from 2020 to 2060, while the share of emissions reduction needs to gradually decrease. Afforestation policies and actions under carbon neutrality should be coordinated with emissions reduction efforts, aiming to achieve cost-optimal joint abatement, which can be an important source of climate mitigation efforts and address the financial challenges of carbon neutrality. Moreover, the intertemporal cost-optimal maps to carbon neutrality through afforestation observed significant spatiotemporal variability of cost-optimal areas. Hence, focusing afforestation efforts on cost-optimal areas during specific periods can be another important way of addressing the financial challenges.