Taking stock of the global area boom for greenhouse cultivation in the 21st century

Greenhouse cultivation that favors agricultural productivity is booming globally in the past decades. Yet, currently little knowledge exists on its global extent and possible drivers of the expansion. Here, we present a global assessment of greenhouse cultivation and map 1.3 million hectares of greenhouse infrastructures in 2019, including both large (61%) and small scale (39%) greenhouse infrastructure that are optimally detectable by using commercial satellite data at 3 m resolution. Examining the temporal development of the 65 largest clusters (> 1500 ha), we show a recent upsurge in greenhouse cultivation in the Global South since 2000s, primarily aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and achieving economic prosperity. China is leading the boom in the Global South and accounts for 61% of the global greenhouse cultivation. Trade and production data for five major greenhouse-cultivated vegetables suggest that China's greenhouse cultivation boom is primarily driven by domestic mechanisms, rather than international ones. To investigate this hypothesis, we examined the spatial patterns of greenhouse cultivation in China and found distinct configurations around urban areas for food provision and around rural areas for poverty alleviation. Our high-resolution thematic map serves as a global baseline for future exploration of environmental and socioeconomic factors related to greenhouse cultivation. Our study also underscores the need for sub-category reporting and optimizing international policies to address measurement, reporting, and verification of greenhouse cultivation.