Many tribal communities such as the Kurumbas, Sholigas and Irulas, large population of scheduled caste, and other communities reside in or around protected areas (PAs)
India Water Portal Flickr
Satellite images show expanding vegetation across China and India, the world's two most populous countries and major contributors to global greening. But beneath the growing green cover lies a more complicated question: what kind of greening are we witnessing, and what does it mean for water, biodiversity, and long-term ecological resilience?
A new study published in Ecological Indicators reveals that while both countries are becoming greener, the forces driving that transformation are fundamentally different. China's greening is largely rooted in forest restoration and state-led ecological programmes. India's greening, by contrast, is overwhelmingly linked to agricultural expansion and irrigated croplands.
The distinction matters because greener landscapes do not automatically translate into healthier ecosystems. Forest restoration can improve biodiversity, regulate water cycles, and strengthen climate resilience. Agricultural greening can increase productivity, but when sustained by intensive groundwater extraction, it may place enormous pressure on rivers, aquifers, and long-term water security. The study, “Analysis of ecological environment differences and attribution between China and India,” published in July 2024 by Jiawen Zhao, Liqun Sun, and Chan Zhou, offers an important reminder that the quality of greening may matter far more than the quantity.
Mapping two decades of greening
The researchers analysed more than twenty years of satellite-derived vegetation data between 2001 and 2022 using the Enhanced Vegetation Index derived from MODIS imagery. Applying the Mann Kendall statistical test, they identified areas showing significant increases in vegetation cover. China recorded greening across nearly 3.5 million square kilometres during the study period, while India experienced greening over approximately 1.06 million square kilometres.
The geography of this transformation differed sharply. China's strongest greening occurred in the Loess Plateau, the Qinba Mountains, western Gansu, and parts of northeastern and east-central China. These regions have been central to large-scale ecological restoration efforts such as the Grain for Green Programme, shelterbelt projects, and anti-desertification campaigns.
India's greening was concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and the Deccan Plateau, landscapes shaped by intensive agriculture, irrigation networks, fertiliser use, and decades of Green Revolution-driven farming.
While both countries appear greener from space, the ecological meaning of that greening is fundamentally different. The contrast is important because not all greening reflects ecological restoration in the same sense. A landscape becoming greener due to forest regeneration is ecologically very different from a landscape becoming greener because of water-intensive agriculture.
Forest restoration versus agricultural greening
One of the paper’s most significant findings concerns land-use transitions within greening areas. In China, forests accounted for 55.57 percent of the total land-cover gains within significantly greening regions. In India, croplands accounted for an overwhelming 95.76 percent of the increase.
This distinction matters because the ecological benefits of forests and croplands are vastly different. Forest ecosystems generally improve biodiversity, enhance carbon sequestration, regulate hydrological cycles, stabilise soils, and moderate local climates. Agricultural greening, especially when driven by irrigation and intensive inputs, may increase productivity and vegetation cover while simultaneously degrading groundwater systems and reducing ecological resilience.
The study explicitly warns that India’s agricultural greening has likely been supported by intensive groundwater extraction in the Ganges-Brahmaputra and Indus basins. This observation aligns with growing evidence from Punjab, Haryana, and parts of western Uttar Pradesh, where groundwater tables have fallen dramatically due to tube-well irrigation and the cultivation of water-intensive crops such as paddy.
China’s ecological approach is not without risks either. The researchers caution that large-scale afforestation in semi-arid landscapes may be approaching the limits of sustainable water availability. In regions such as the Loess Plateau, extensive plantation programmes can reduce streamflow and increase pressure on already fragile water systems if species selection and ecological planning are poorly managed.
The broader lesson is that ecological restoration cannot be separated from hydrology. Greening that undermines water security may eventually become ecologically unsustainable.
Urbanization and the collapse of green space
The paper becomes particularly revealing when it examines urban areas. Urbanisation reduced greening levels in both countries, but the negative impact was far greater in India. According to the study, urbanisation in India was 2.4 times more detrimental to greening than in China.
The average significant greening level in Chinese urban areas was 19.1 percent, compared with just 12.3 percent in Indian cities. Moreover, 91 percent of Chinese cities had medium to high levels of greening per capita, while most Indian cities fell into low-greening categories.
The study attributes much of this difference to contrasting urban governance systems. Chinese cities, despite their high density, have generally maintained stronger state control over land conversion and urban planning. India’s urban growth, on the other hand, has often been fragmented, market-driven, and weakly regulated.
The ecological consequences are visible across Indian metropolitan regions. Wetlands have disappeared under real estate development, peri-urban agriculture has shrunk, and tree cover has steadily declined. Large cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai continue to experience rising heat stress and worsening air quality while simultaneously losing accessible public green space.
The paper also points to the role of informal settlements and slum expansion. Dense low-rise settlements with little planning leave almost no room for parks, tree cover, or ecological buffers. This creates a situation where the poorest urban residents are also the most exposed to heat islands, flooding, and environmental health risks.
Urban greenery is not simply a cosmetic feature. Green spaces regulate temperature, improve air quality, reduce flood risk, and support mental and physical health. As climate change intensifies heatwaves across South Asia, access to urban green infrastructure will increasingly become a public health necessity.
Poverty, governance, and environmental inequality
The study also reveals major differences in how greening intersects with poverty. In China, many of the strongest greening regions overlap with formerly poor counties. The authors argue that centralised governance, ecological subsidies, and targeted public investment enabled China to integrate poverty alleviation with environmental restoration.
India presents a different picture. The paper notes that nearly half of India’s urban population lived in slums in 2020, where greening outcomes remain poor. Unlike China’s largely rural poverty geography, India’s poverty is increasingly concentrated in urban and peri-urban areas.
This creates a fundamentally different governance challenge. Greening dense informal settlements requires land tenure reform, decentralised planning, and sustained public investment. Plantation campaigns alone cannot solve the ecological deficits of Indian cities.
India’s policy discourse often treats greening as a matter of tree-planting targets, but the study suggests that meaningful ecological transformation requires institutional reforms in land governance, urban planning, and public infrastructure.
Why green cover statistics can be misleading
An important methodological contribution of the paper is its warning that satellite greening metrics do not necessarily capture ecological quality. Monoculture plantations, irrigated croplands, and biodiverse natural forests may all appear similarly green in satellite imagery.
This distinction is critical because governments increasingly use greening statistics as indicators of environmental success. A rise in vegetation cover does not automatically mean an improvement in ecological health.
India’s greening, for instance, may partly reflect agricultural intensification supported by irrigation and fertilisers rather than ecological restoration. In some regions, short-term greening may conceal long-term ecological degradation caused by groundwater depletion, chemical pollution, and biodiversity loss.
The researchers therefore argue for more comprehensive indicators that incorporate ecosystem resilience, biodiversity quality, social equity, and long-term sustainability.
What India needs to do
The findings of the study point towards several urgent policy priorities for India. The first is the need to move beyond plantation-centric greening strategies. Large-scale tree planting without ecological suitability assessments can worsen water stress and create low-survival monocultures. Ecological restoration programmes should prioritise native species, watershed compatibility, and biodiversity outcomes rather than focusing solely on plantation numbers.
The second priority is strengthening urban planning laws. Indian cities need enforceable standards for minimum green-space availability, ecological buffers, and biodiversity corridors. Urban master plans should integrate ecological infrastructure as a core planning component rather than treating it as an afterthought.
The third requirement is investment in decentralised urban greening. The paper specifically highlights the role of pocket parks and vertical greening in space-constrained urban environments. In India, this could include rooftop gardens, shaded pedestrian corridors, school greening initiatives, urban forests, and the restoration of lakes and wetlands.
A fourth priority is integrating ecological restoration with water governance. India cannot rely indefinitely on groundwater-intensive agriculture as its primary pathway to greening. Agricultural policy needs to promote crop diversification, agroforestry, regenerative farming systems, and water-efficient cultivation practices.
Fifth, slum redevelopment programmes should include ecological infrastructure as a basic public service. Access to green spaces in low-income neighbourhoods should be treated as a public health necessity rather than an urban luxury.
Finally, India needs stronger ecological fiscal transfers and incentives. States and urban local bodies that protect forests, wetlands, and biodiversity should receive sustained financial support. Ecological restoration cannot succeed without long-term financing mechanisms.
Beyond green optics
The broader message of the study extends far beyond China and India. As governments increasingly use greening statistics to demonstrate environmental progress, there is a risk that vegetation growth becomes a politically attractive but ecologically incomplete metric.
A landscape can appear greener while aquifers decline, biodiversity shrinks, wetlands disappear, and ecological resilience weakens. China's experience demonstrates the potential of large scale ecological restoration supported by coordinated state investment, although questions remain regarding water sustainability in some regions.
India's experience highlights how agricultural expansion can increase vegetation cover while simultaneously exposing deeper vulnerabilities related to groundwater depletion, urban ecological decline, and environmental inequality. The challenge for both countries is no longer simply to become greener.
It is to ensure that greening strengthens rivers, groundwater systems, forests, biodiversity, and communities. In an era of climate uncertainty and growing water stress, the true measure of environmental success will not be the number of green pixels visible from space, but the resilience of the ecosystems and people those landscapes support.