Abstract
With the rapid socio-economic development, human disturbances are believed to have resulted in the degradation of the watershed ecosystem. The ecological damage to and environmental pollution of river basins have caused great losses. It is widely agreed upon that the protection and restoration of river ecosystems should be on the agenda. Ecological compensation, an important tool to prevent the deterioration of water environments and achieve sustainable watershed development, has attracted increasing interest as a research subject. In this study, the upper reach of Hun River basin was selected as a typical study area. The primary purpose was to determine the allocation costs of ecological compensation in different regions for the river basin. The amount of willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the eco-compensation was estimated at 3.2 million dollars by the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). Based on linear programming techniques, a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) created a primary value of the allocation costs. Considering the different weights of each region, a modified coefficient was introduced to correct the primary result on the basis of a questionnaire survey of river ecological protection and construction.
Highlights
Due to many factors, such as social and economic development and water project construction, numerous river ecosystems have been degraded
It has been found that ecological compensation is a useful approach to balance and deal with regional water conflicts and ecological destruction
At the 5% significance level: (1) there is a significant negative correlation between age and willingness to pay, which means that the older the age, the lower the willingness to compensate; and (2) residents that support river ecological compensation and have a higher education and income are willing to make a greater payment because they have good social resources and economic conditions
Summary
Due to many factors, such as social and economic development and water project construction, numerous river ecosystems have been degraded. Given the common recognition of degradation in the quantity and quality of water resources, many international organizations and agencies from numerous countries have taken multiple measures in recent years. It has been found that ecological compensation is a useful approach to balance and deal with regional water conflicts and ecological destruction. In both the 11th 5-year Plan for National Environmental Protection and the Resolution on Implementing the Science-based Development Perspectives to Enhance Environmental Protection, the State Council has proposed to accelerate the building of ecological compensation [3]
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