Grounding climate mitigation in land realities
We study land-climate interactions. We assess emerging pressures on land systems and design pathways to cut land-based emissions. We also examine how terrestrial ecosystems respond to climate variability.
Our strength is transparent carbon accounting for land use activities. We specialize in biophysical modeling tools (such as forest carbon dynamics, land surface fluxes, and agricultural life cycle assessment) and integrate evidence from remote sensing, national inventories, and field observations. Our work informs climate policy and delivers actionable insights for food security, sustainable land management, and natural climate solutions.
Liqing Peng is a joint assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality at HKU. She is the leader of the APLUS lab.
February, 2026
How can we build the homes the world needs—without destroying habitats on our planet? Our paper (https://doi.org/10.1038/s44458-025-00027-1) evaluates realistic pathways to decarbonize construction materials by 2050. It shows that while sustainable biomass supply is constrained for engineered bio-based products, low-carbon concrete can scale globally, offering a practical route to deliver housing and cut embodied carbon.
November, 2025
We recently visited the Lai Chi Wo coffee plantation to learn how agroforestry is being practiced in Hong Kong. Over the past decade, Lai Chi Wo’s coffee plantation has grown from a small pilot into a signature local agroforestry effort—rehabilitating abandoned terraces, expanding plantings, and learning-by-doing from early trial harvests.
October, 2025
This brief Nature reply (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09381-5) continues an important conversation on forest carbon accounting. We clarify key assumptions and methodological choices about the carbon implications of wood harvesting and forest management. The goal is to keep the debate constructive and transparent—so evidence can better inform forest policy and climate solutions.