Sun Pengsen

Prof.  Sun Pengsen

Organization: Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry

Research category: Ecology

Research field: Forest ecology and management

E-mail: sunpsen@caf.ac.cn

Main work

The main achievement of Sun Pengsen in Prof. Sun Pengsen's 22-year research career in subalpine area of southwestern China is clarifying the response mechanisms of forest vegetation to large-scale disturbances of human activities and climate change. In his study, he found a general trade-off relationship between water yield and ecosystem productivity in Minjiang watershed, revealed that vegetation composition and elevation played a key role in determining the relative ecological benefits for carbon and water in the study watershed with a complex terrain. He also found significant greening trend in subalpine vegetation, and the greening and browning rates were both elevational asymmetric, with higher rates at lower elevations. The vegetation activity showed an alternating domination effect of temperature and precipitation along elevational gradient. He conceived a succession hypothesis of forest water use for subalpine forest, with the forward development of forest succession, forest water use will tend to decrease, and the zonal climax community-subalpine dark coniferous forest, has the lowest water consumption. As the associate editor, he published his early study results in the book of 'spatial ecohydrology' in year 2020. Recently, Prof. Sun Pengsen is focused in modelling hydrological processes coupled with forest dynamics and vegetation phenology, the spatial explicit processes driven by multi-source remote sensing information, including hyper-spectral, high temporal and spatial resolution remote sensing technology.

Key research projects

  • Hydrological resilience in response to forest restoration in upstream of Minjiang watershed. National Natural Science Foundation of China,2024-2027.

  • Forest ecosystems investigation and data integration of national ecological research stations in China. Special Project on National Science and Technology Basic Resources Investigation of China. 2021-2024.

  • Modelling canopy conductance and spatial explicit ecohydrological processes in Minjiang watershed. National key research and development plan of China,2023-2027.

  • Increasing vegetation activity and its impact on hydrological stability of Minjiang watershed. Research foundation of Chinese academy of forestry. 2021-2025.

  • Integration and assessment of restoration technology for degrading forest ecosystems in alpine and subalpine woodland in southwestern China. National key research and development plan of China, 2017-2020.

Awards & achievements

  • First Prize for "Sichuan Provincial Award of Science and Technology Advancement", Entitled "Key technologies and applications of forest vegetation restoration and water conservation function improvement in the upper reaches of Minjiang River", 2020.

  • First Prize of "Liang Xi Forestry Science and Technology Award", entitled "Coupling and long-term evolution mechanism of forest vegetation ecohydrological processes in the Minjiang River Basin in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River", 2015.

Published articles & books

  • Meirong Sun, Pengsen Sun*, Ning Liu, Lei Zhang, Zhen Yu, Qiuhong Feng,Keith Smettem, Shirong Liu. Alternating dominant effects of temperature and precipitation along elevational gradient on the alpine and subalpine vegetation activities in southwestern China, Forest Ecology and Management, 2024,554(121668).

  • Lei Zhang; Pengsen Sun*; Falk Huettmann; Shirong Liu*; Where should China practice forestry in a warming world? Global Change Biology, 2021, 28, 2461-2475.

  • Liu Ning; Sun Pengsen*; Peter V. Caldwell; Richard Harper; Liu Shirong; Ge Sun; Trade-off between watershed water yield and ecosystem productivity along elevation gradients on a complex terrain in southwestern China, Journal of Hydrology, 2020, 590.

  • Yu, Z., Liu, S., Li, H., Liang, J., Liu, W., Piao, S., Tian, H., Zhou, G., Lu, C., You, W., Sun, P., Dong, Y., Sitch, S., Agathokleous, E., 2024. Maximizing carbon sequestration potential in Chinese forests through optimal management. Nature Communications, (2024) 15:3154.

  • Yu, Z., Zhou, G., Liu, S., Sun, P., Agathokleous, E., 2020. Impacts of forest management intensity on carbon accumulation of China's forest plantations. Forest Ecology and Management 472, 118252.

  • Shirong Liu, Pengsen Sun. Spatial ecohydrology. Science press, 2020.