Global warming, which is caused by the rapid increase of atmospheric CO₂, has become an urgent problem for sustainable human development around the world.Terrestrial ecosystems have played an important carbon sink role over the past several decades, by absorbing about 30% of the CO₂ emitted by anthropogenic activities.This paper reviews the methods used to estimated the carbon sequestration rate of terrestrial ecosystems, including sampling inventory, flux monitoring, model simulation and remote sensing, and analyzes the progresses and challenges of the current approaches for calculating terrestrial carbon sequestration.Sampling inventory and flux observations can provide direct measurement of plot-scale carbon sequestration rate, yet there remain many problems, such as limited observation samples and insufficient spatial representation.Model simulation methods can describe the terrestrial carbon cycles and simulate the state and change of carbon sequestration rates in terrestrial ecosystems.However, using the approximating and simplifying processes of available models, together with the uncertainties introduced by model-driven data, it is very challenging to accurately model the carbon sequestration rate of terrestrial ecosystems.Satellite remote sensing, which possesses the advantages of global coverage, fine resolution and time-series observations, combined with machine learning methods, can provide a new approach for the estimation of the carbon sequestration rate of terrestrial ecosystems.At present, the various accounting methods that are available for carbon sequestration rates have yet to meet the needs of monitoring carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems, due to the high spatial and temporal heterogeneity.In the future, it is of utmost importance to integrate various accounting approaches, such as ground observations, model simulations and satellite remote sensing, so as to provide an accurate estimation of terrestrial ecosystem carbon sinks at the regional and global scales.