Abstract
Ecological compensation (EC) is an important way to solve the imbalance of cross-regional economic development and realize regional coordinated development. How to quantify the standard of EC has become a hot research topic. Firstly, this paper selected the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRR) as the study area, and constructed a cross-regional spillover ecological value measurement model based on the extended emergy analysis. From the perspective of the “ecology–economy–society” complex ecosystem, this paper used emergy to reflect the social, economic, and ecological function and service value of the TGRR, and estimated the ecosystem emergy supply and consumption in the TGRR. Then, comparing the watershed ecosystem emergy supply and consumption, we can judge the status of the ecological surplus and deficit of the TGRR, and transfer the spillover ecological emergy to spillover ecological value (SEV) by using the emergy currency ratio (ECR). Finally, combined with different actual payment level coefficient, we can obtain a relatively objective and robust compensation standard. The results show that the SEV of the TGRR in 2016 is 2.70 × 1011 USD, which indicates that the TGRR is in the state of ecological surplus. The TGRR should get EC about 2.85 × 1011 USD according to the ECR. Based on the research results, it is suggested to expand the transfer payment to the TGRR. At the same time, it is suggested to formulate different ecological compensation standard (ECS) according to regional differences, which has important practical significance to establish the allocation standard of EC, and provides a typical case basis for other large reservoir areas or typical reservoir areas.
Highlights
As the basis for the sustainable development of human society, natural ecosystems provide vitally important resources and energy for human survival and development
The concept of Ecological compensation (EC) is ordinarily used in China, which corresponds to the popular term of payment for ecosystem services (PES) among the international society [9]
In the process of calculating the spillover ecological value (SEV), the principles of reasonable basis, scientific method, and objective comparability should be fully reflected in the following three aspects: (1) Based on the existing relevant studies, it is considered that the SEV is obtained by subtracting the ecosystem’s own consumption emergy from the emergy value provided by the entire study area, the SEV is obtained by using the emergy currency ratio (ECR). (2) The scientific method is the core of measuring SEV, the emergy model and input–output analysis selected in this study can scientifically measure the cross-regional SEV. (3) The SEV of each region must be objective and comparable
Summary
As the basis for the sustainable development of human society, natural ecosystems provide vitally important resources and energy for human survival and development. The over-pressure and over-exploitation of natural resources threaten the ecosystem security, accompanied by a series of problems that seriously threaten the future survival and development of human beings and restrict social and economic development, such as global resource depletion, energy crisis, and ecological environment deterioration [3,4]. The concept of EC is ordinarily used in China, which corresponds to the popular term of payment for ecosystem services (PES) among the international society [9]. It is one of the effective methods to coordinate the contradictory relationship between economic development and environmental protection [10]. In contrast to the punitive environmental protection policy and measures such as environmental protection tax and sewage tax, the EC aims to repair and eliminate the negative impact of human economic and social development on the ecosystem, give consideration to fairness and efficiency, alleviate the ecological interest conflict between different regions, and achieve the balance and coordination between regional economic development and ecological protection [12,13,14]
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