Abstract. We present the first gridded and temporally continuous quantitative
pollen-based plant-cover reconstruction for temperate and northern
subtropical China over the Holocene (11.7 ka to present) obtained by applying the
Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model.
The objective is to provide a dataset of pollen-based land cover for the
last ca. 12 millennia that is suitable for palaeoclimate modelling and for the evaluation
of simulated past vegetation cover from dynamic vegetation models and
anthropogenic land-cover change (ALCC) scenarios. The REVEALS reconstruction
was achieved using 94 selected pollen records from lakes and bogs at a
1∘ × 1∘ spatial scale and a temporal resolution
of 500 years between 11.7 and 0.7 ka and in three recent time windows
(0.7–0.35 ka, 0.35–0.1 ka, and 0.1 ka to present). The dataset
includes REVEALS estimates of cover and their standard errors (SEs) for 27
plant taxa in 75 1∘ × 1∘ grid cells distributed
within the study region. The 27 plant taxa were also grouped into 6 plant
functional types and 3 land-cover types (coniferous trees CT,
broadleaved trees BT, and C3 herbs/open land (C3H/OL)), and their REVEALS
estimates of cover and related SEs were calculated. We describe the protocol
used for the selection of pollen records and the REVEALS application (with
parameter settings) and explain the major rationales behind the protocol. As
an illustration, we present, for eight selected time windows, gridded maps of
the pollen-based REVEALS estimates of cover for the three land-cover types
(CT, BT, and C3H/OL). We then discuss the reliability and limitations of the
Chinese dataset of Holocene gridded REVEALS plant cover, and its current and
potential uses. The dataset is available at the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC;
Li, 2022; https://doi.org/10.11888/Paleoenv.tpdc.272292).
