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[Display omitted] • Landscape of blue carbon research from the perspective of bibliometrics. • Blue carbon ecosystem was the main research area, but macroalgae deserve attention. • Artificial intervention and methods are potential hotspots in the future research. • Statistics, co-occurrence analysis and thematic evolution are main used methods. Blue carbon sequestration is a nature-based solution to environmental problems caused by climate change and has a significant positive impact on the planet and human well-being. This paper bibliometrically and systematically analyzed 2,613 studies found in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) from 2003 to 2021 to explore the hotspots and trends of blue carbon research using the Bibliometrix package in R studio and VOSviewer software. The results based on network co-occurrence analysis indicated that mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes were the major blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs), and mangrove carbon sinks were the most popular central research area. Furthermore, phytoplankton and microalgae have essential roles in the marine carbon cycle and bioenergy utilization, as revealed by the high proportion of published literature, while the carbon transport mechanisms of seagrass and macroalgae was understudied. Thematic evolution analysis revealed that remote sensing was the most commonly used technology as an emerging research field for ecological monitoring and ecological investigation in blue carbon research in recent years. In addition, increasing carbon sinks by artificial approaches, fishery carbon sinks, and carbon sequestration by macroalgae have been potential hotspots for blue carbon research development. The findings from this study shed light on the trends of blue carbon in the past eighteen years, current research points in the field, and areas that need more research investment going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Visualization and quantitative analysis of the global ecological carbon sinks and sources. • Enhance the prediction of carbon sequestration dynamics under climate change. • Climate change potentially affecting the carbon-climate feedback. • Research content is becoming clearer and more systematic. • Keyword clustering the classification of the research into six relatively independent subtopics. Climate change is extensively affecting the global ecosystem, especially the ecosystem carbon sequestration and sequestration potential, which are issues of global concern. The proposed concept of "carbon neutrality" in 2020 has brought ecological carbon sequestration to the forefront. Therefore, the research on climate change and ecosystem carbon sequestration need to be systematically reviewed, summarized, and examined. Based on the Web of Science database, this paper analyzed 4005 articles (1992–2022 year) after rigorous screening via a bibliometrics analysis and then presented the research trends and future research focus of ecological carbon sequestration. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) the research over the last 30 years has steadily improved, and the annual number of publications has increased in a cubic polynomial fashion (R 2 = 0.9937), with 87.57 % of the total publications appearing after 2009. Global Change Biology and Science of the Total Environment are the most influential journals in the field; (2) participation in such research is becoming increasingly common with expanding research areas covering Eurasia, America, Oceania, and Africa. The United States and China are the most productive and influential countries; (3) the diversity of this research is increasing, and the research content is becoming more explicit and systematic. Most research focuses on climate change, carbon sequestration, management, land-use changes, and nitrogen and soil organic carbon; (4) although traditional ecological evaluation techniques were essential early on, remote sensing and modeling have become the primary methods for assessment; (5) keyword clustering allows the classification of the research into six relatively independent subtopics: climate change and terrestrial ecosystems, sequestration and organic-carbon, ecosystem services, nitrogen and carbon cycling, biomass and forest, and blue carbon, which provides a reference for further research on ecological carbon sequestration and carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Grassland degradation is the main reason for the decline in carbon storage. • The carbon storage of farmland has increased significantly. • The risk of carbon storage reduction in the future is still high. The carbon storage of terrestrial ecosystems is closely related to global climate change. Therefore, assessing the impact of land-use changes on carbon storage is instructive to reduce global carbon emissions. Taking an arid region in northwest China as an example, this paper analyzed the land-use changes in arid region from 1980 to 2015. It used the CA-Markov model to predict the land-use pattern from 2020 to 2050, the carbon storage and sequestration module in Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (Invest) mode to assess and predict ecosystem carbon storage over the past 35 years and in the next 30 years and discusses the impact of land-use changes on the carbon storage of terrestrial ecosystems. The results showed that: (1) The high-value areas of carbon storage in arid region were primarily concentrated in grassland, forests and farmland, and the low-value areas of carbon storage were mainly in desert areas. (2) The carbon storage in arid region showed a downward trend. From 1980 to 2015, the carbon reserves of terrestrial ecosystems in arid region decreased by 90.95 Tg, and the net loss of carbon reserves from 2020 to 2050 was 14.72 Tg. Grassland degradation was the main reason for the reduction of carbon storage in arid region. (3) The carbon storage of farmland had increased significantly, but the expansion of farmland dominated by high carbon density grassland, wetland and forest, had reduced the overall carbon storage of the arid region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]