| Summary: | Abstract Soil conservation is of global importance, as accelerated soil erosion by human activity is a primary threat to ecosystem viability. However, the significance and role of soil conservation in reshaping landscape carbon (C) accounting has not been comprehensively integrated in the terrestrial C sink. Here, we present the first integrated assessment of the modified terrestrial C sink and aquatic C transport due to soil conservation for the semiarid Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), the world's most vulnerable region to soil erosion. We show a surprisingly low terrestrial‐aquatic C transfer that offset the terrestrial net ecosystem productivity by only 7.5%, which we attribute to the effective implementation of soil conservation practices. Despite the highest soil erosion, the semiarid CLP acts as effective C sink at 43.2 ± 22.6 g C m−2 year−1, which is comparable to temperate forest in absorbing atmospheric CO2. Moreover, C burial in reservoirs has created an additional anthropogenic C sink of 2.9 ± 1.1 g C m−2 year−1. Our findings indicate that effective soil conservation can significantly increase landscape C sequestration capacity. The co‐benefits of soil conservation in erosion control and C sequestration have important implications for policy makers in other regions undergoing increasing erosion intensity to pursue environmental sustainability.
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