A measure of the net value of ecosystem services and the evaluation of Beijing Plain Afforestation Project

Abstract

Landscapes generate a wide range of valuable ecosystem services, and valuation of these services provides support for land-use decisions. The most common approach to identifying these tradeoffs is called “payment for ecosystem services” (PES), and when this approach is carefully applied, it has the potential to enhance how ecosystem services are used and improve their protection by signaling the development of a scarcity of environmental resources. However, this approach often ignores the opportunity costs of these services, thereby making the net benefit of the ecosystem services and their responses to land-use change unclear. Therefore, there must be a fuller accounting for both the costs and the benefits of various alternatives, and such an accounting must become the basis for developing policy, reaching ethical decisions, and taking appropriate actions. Through the evaluation of net value of ecosystem services, we can compare the maximum net benefits of alternative land uses, thereby providing basis for decision-making during land use planning, industrial and agricultural programs and ecological and environmental restoration programs as well as socioeconomic and national economic development planning.