Land use is a local environmental issue that has become globally important. The need to provide food and fiber to more than seven billion people have resulted in forest changes worldwide. Urgent management of the trade-offs between increasing human needs and maintaining the capacity of forest floors is required. This study aims to conduct a systematic analysis of China’s virtual forest land use connected with foreign and domestic trading through an input-output analysis that considers the effect of global economic trade on regional resource displacement. The embodied forest land intensities decreased from 6.10 hectares/million yuan in 2000 to 0.35 in 2015. China changed from a net exporter of virtual forest land use to a net importer in 2015. Sectors 6 (food processing) and 1 (agriculture) respectively account for the largest and second largest utilization of forest land areas primarily due to household consumption. Virtual forest land flows from Northeast China, central provinces, and northern provinces to eastern coastal provinces and from southern provinces to Guangdong. A systematic analysis can encourage the Chinese government to prioritize sustainable forest land use and avoid promoting economic development at the expense of forest land resources, especially with the enhancement of trading connections in China.

virtual land,input output analysis