Abstract
To make environmental management decisions more executive and targeted, it is essential for decision-making to include local residents’ perceptions and preferences for ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity (BD). This study conducted a questionnaire survey with 386 local residents to explore social perceptions for ES and BD in the Fenghe River watershed. ES contain food from agriculture (AGR), food from livestock (LIV), fresh water (FW), air purification (AP), water purification (WP), water retention (WR), soil retention (SR), aesthetics (AES), recreation (RE), and spirit (SP) in this study. Ranking and Likert scales are combined to identify residents’ preferences for ES and BD. The hypothetical market method is used to identify the willingness to pay for BD and ES. Independent sample T-test, one-way ANOVA, and Spearman correlation are used to analyze preference heterogeneity. The results show that: (1) residents prefer WP, AP, AGR, and FW; (2) 51.3% of respondents are willing to pay a fee for improving ES while 48.7% of respondents are unwilling to pay; (3) residents’ personal and residential factors affect preference heterogeneity. Last, we put forward three management suggestions on controlling environmental pollution, improving residents’ awareness of ES, and establishing a multi-channel fund based on government financial resources for improving ES in the Fenghe River watershed. Integrating stakeholders’ perceptions for ES into decision-making can promote the sustainable development in Fenghe River watershed.
Highlights
Ecosystem services (ES) are tangible and intangible products or services that humans obtain from ecosystems [1,2]
We described the purpose of the survey and the content ofinthe sample points. to Wethese described the purpose of the survey and questionnaire
Respondents who had a primary school education alone accounted for 18.4%, and uneducated accounted for 2.6%
Summary
Ecosystem services (ES) are tangible and intangible products or services that humans obtain from ecosystems [1,2]. With population growth and economic development, the earth’s surface land cover has undergone tremendous changes. Agricultural landscapes and human settlements account for 75% of the earth’s ice-free surface [3]. Changes in land cover patterns have changed ecosystem functions and processes and have a significant impact on ES [4,5]. The provisioning services of ES have increased, the regulating services and biodiversity (BD) have degraded [6,7,8]. Countries or regions usually solve the problem of ecological damage by establishing nature reserves [9], and more than 12% of the earth’s land surface is designated as protected areas [10]
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