Urban morphology, not scale, dominates building-operational carbon emissions across 520 million buildings in China

Urban morphology, not scale, dominates building-operational carbon emissions across 520 million buildings in China | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Urban morphology, not scale, dominates building-operational carbon emissions across 520 million buildings in China Dabo Guan, Yuxing Chen, Kaipeng Ren, Yida Sun, Quan Wen, Diling Liang, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8093398/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Building are responsible for 37% of global energy-related CO₂ emissions, yet the operational carbon of building stocks is still predominantly assessed at aggregated statistical scales or for small, non-representative samples. This obscures how the physical configuration of cities shapes their emission profiles. Here, we construct a spatially explicit, bottom-up inventory of building operational carbon emissions(BOCE) for China that couples city-level energy statistics with morphological and functional data for more than 520 million individual buildings across 330 prefecture and 2,633 counties. In 2021, Chinese buildings emitted 2,767 Mt CO₂, with pronounced spatial clustering that aligns with major urban agglomerations but exhibits far stronger variation in carbon intensity than in total emissions. We show that urban form—not city size or economic scale—is the primary determinant of BOCE intensity. A systematic morphological paradox emerges: districts with low building density but high floor area ratio host vertically concentrated high-rise clusters dispersed over large areas and become carbon hotspots, frequently exceeding 15 kg CO₂ m⁻²—a level higher than that observed in 71% of all districts—whereas compact, morphologically coherent developments sustain much lower intensities. Case studies of five representative cities spanning distinct climates and urban forms reveal a nearly three-fold range in intensity (10.27–28.82 kg CO₂ m⁻²) despite comparable total emissions, arising from interactions among climate, building typology and energy infrastructure. Our multi-scale framework demonstrates that redesigning spatial configuration and power systems can decouple urban development from emissions, providing actionable pathways for context-specific decarbonization in rapidly urbanizing regions. Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences/Environmental impact Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Carbon and energy Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change mitigation Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupplementaryInformation.docx Urban morphology, not scale, dominates building-operational carbon emissions across 520 million buildings in China Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8093398","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":549701420,"identity":"3190d576-63d1-4f5b-895a-c7f730d48f15","order_by":0,"name":"Dabo 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