Search Results (4)

Based on a comprehensive review of the current research status of ecological compensation both domestically and internationally, combined with field survey data, this study delves into the issue of multi-stakeholder participation in the ecological compensation mechanisms of the Xin’an River Basin. This research reveals that the joint participation of multiple stakeholders is crucial to achieving the goals of ecological compensation in river basins. The government plays a significant role in macro-guidance, financial support, policy guarantees, supervision, and management. It promotes the comprehensive implementation of ecological environmental protection by formulating relevant laws and regulations, guiding the public to participate in ecological conservation, and supervising and punishing pollution behaviors. The public, serving as the main force, forms strong awareness and behavioral habits of ecological protection through active participation in environmental protection, monitoring, and feedback. As participants, enterprises contribute to industrial transformation and green development by improving resource utilization efficiency, reducing pollution emissions, promoting green industries, and participating in ecological restoration projects. Scientific research institutions, as technology enablers, have effectively enhanced governance efficiency through technological research and innovation, ecosystem value accounting to provide decision-making support, and public education. Social organizations, as facilitators, have injected vitality and innovation into watershed governance by extensively mobilizing social forces and building multi-party collaboration platforms. Communities, as supporters, have transformed ecological value into economic benefits by developing characteristic industries such as eco-agriculture and eco-tourism. Based on the above findings, further recommendations are proposed to mobilize the enthusiasm of upstream communities and encourage their participation in ecological compensation, promote the market-oriented operation of ecological compensation mechanisms, strengthen cross-regional cooperation to establish joint mechanisms, enhance supervision and evaluation, and establish a sound benefit-sharing mechanism. These recommendations provide theoretical support and practical references for ecological compensation worldwide. Full article

Ecological compensation is one of the important measures to coordinate regional ecological protection and economic development. As the only inter-provincial river in Fujian Province and the second inter-provincial watershed of the eco-compensation pilot in China, the Tingjiang River basin has attracted increasing attention from policy makers and scholars. This study aims to systematically analyze the ecological compensation mechanism and improve the effectiveness of ecological protection in the Tingjiang River basin. In this paper, ecosystem service value (ESV) is used as a criterion for establishing ecological compensation standards. Based on the land cover datasets from 2010 to 2020, the spatial distribution and the dynamic changes of ESV were determined. Subsequently, the priority and standards of ecological compensation were established according to the level of the socio-economic development. Finally, the horizontal ecological compensation was determined by combining the actual benefits and willingness-to-pay of downstream beneficiary regions. The results indicate the following findings: (1) The ESV of the Tingjiang River basin exhibited a decreasing trend over the past decade. It decreased from CNY 70.72 billion in 2010 to CNY 69.05 billion in 2020, with a rate of change of −2.37%; (2) The growth of GDP in the research area has led to a decrease in the priority and standards of ecological compensation. The ecological compensation quota shows a decreasing trend from upstream to downstream, that is, Changting county (33%) > Wuping county (27%) > Shanghang county (21%) > Yongding district (19%); (3) The amounts of horizontal ecological compensation that Guangdong province need to pay are CNY 224 million, 166 million, and 109 million in 2010, 2015, and 2020, respectively. The findings of this research can not only optimize the allocation of ecological compensation, but also provide a reference for other countries/regions to carry out relevant research work. Full article

Watershed eco-compensation (WEC) is considered a significant environmental policy instrument for watershed ecological protection and management. However, in the legislation and practice of eco-compensation in China, the development of the WEC mechanism is still in the initial stages. In this paper, the institutional opportunities and challenges of WEC are analyzed from the existing policies, laws, and economical instruments. Theoretically, WEC in China has seen a combination of punitive-based “Watershed Ecological Damage Compensation (WEDC)” and incentive-based “Watershed Ecological Protective Compensation (WEPC)”. Through a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign watershed compensation practices, the results demonstrate that most of China’s WEC projects have an insufficient legal basis, a single compensatory subject, insufficient compensation funds, and an imperfect market-oriented compensation mechanism. To improve watershed eco-compensation in China, it is recommended to strengthen legislation, select diversified eco-compensation approaches, and establish a market-based and systematic eco-compensation mechanism for watersheds. Full article

Transboundary water pollution is a long-standing problem in China, although the Chinese government has been committed to the protection of water resources. Due to the different interests of multilevel governments and the regionalization of management, there is still no unified plan to solve the transboundary water pollution in China. Watershed ecological compensation as a holistic plan to deal with transboundary water pollution is being promoted currently. Taking the South-to-North Water Transfer Project’ eastern route as an example, this paper firstly analyses stakeholders’ strategies and establishes a tripartite game model based on evolutionary game theory. Secondly, by introducing Cobb Douglas production function creatively, the supervision level of the central government is refined into supervisory attitude and supervisory skills. Thirdly, the numerical simulation is used to analyze the sensitivity of influencing factors. The results show that: (1) whether the central government supervises the local governments mainly depends on the benefits of water environment improvement and supervision costs; (2) the initial negotiation plan of the stakeholders has a significant impact on their optimum strategies; (3) the fines imposed by the central government on the local governments have a small impact on the stable state of the system; (4) the higher the eco-compensation fee, the lower their likelihood of cooperation; (5) the central government’s supervisory attitude and supervisory skills have significant effect on the sustainability of the optimum arrangement, even when willingness of upstream and downstream governments to cooperate is low; (6) the initial ecological benefits of downstream governments have no effect on the optimum strategy. Therefore, considering these insights is helpful to improve the watershed ecological compensation mechanism in order to solve transboundary water pollution and achieve the sustainability of water resources. Full article