Unleashing the Potential of Abandoned Rural Settlements for Optimized Food and Climate Goals

Urbanization worldwide has resulted in a substantial increase in abandoned rural settlements, presenting a unique opportunity to enhance food security and mitigate climate change. Here we quantify the potential of these underutilized lands for optimized agricultural production and carbon sequestration, using China as a compelling case study. Leveraging high-resolution Night-Time Light (NTL) data from LuoJia1-01, we identify approximately 5.66 Mha of abandoned settlements across rural China, representing 38.05% of all rural settlements. We employ a probabilistic multi-objective spatial optimization of land use (pMOLU) model to strategically allocate these lands between reclamation for agriculture and afforestation, maximizing both food production and carbon sequestration under various scenarios. The results reveal that reclaiming abandoned settlements could yield an additional 9–21 Mt of food annually, while reforestation efforts could sequester 5–14 Mt of carbon per year. Furthermore, we propose a spatial prioritization strategy for the phased implementation of consolidation across the country and evaluate its beneficial impacts on food security and climate goals.The findings underscore the untapped potential of abandoned rural settlements for promoting sustainable development and offer a robust framework for optimizing land-use decisions in China and beyond.