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Ecological Compensation Estimation of Soil and Water Conservation Based on Cost-Benefit Analysis

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Abstract

Soil and water conservation ecological compensation can be simply defined as a monetary payment to offset the environmental loss. An illustration is given in this study describing the payment compensation to water resource conservation and soil losses in Erlongshan reservoir catchment, China. A semi-distributed hydrological SWAT model was applied to establish compensation standard considering six scenarios of land use changes by combined application of remote sensing and geographic information systems. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) method is applied to evaluate the function of soil and water conservation, of which marginal opportunity cost and market value methods have been explored calculate the cost and benefit of water and soil conservation ecological function from provider and beneficiaries. Finally the ecological compensation of soil and water conservation for different land-use scenarios is calculated incorporating benefit apportion coefficient. The results provide an economically evaluated and market-oriented standard for the study of eco-compensation of environmental services and will be of great benefit to the implementation of soil and water conservation at a mesoscale catchment scale.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by project science and technology from Department of Science and Technology of Jilin Province (20060166) and the National Key S&T Special Project of Control and Management of the Water Pollution under the agreement 2009ZX07526-006-04-01 and 2012ZX07201-001. And the financial foundation from base construction of Jilin University (450060481244), Scientific Research Foundation for Returned Scholars of Jilin University (450060485009) and Seed Science Foundation from Ministry of Education of China (450060488107) are also greatly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Lab of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education and Key Lab of Water Resources and Aquatic Environment, Jilin Province, College of Environment and Resources, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Lina Sun, Wenxi Lu & Qingchun Yang

  2. Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Universidad de A Coruña, Campus de Elviña, 15192, A Coruña, Spain

    Qingchun Yang & Jordi Delgado Martín

  3. Jilin Province Water Resource and Hydropower Consultative Company of P.P.CHINA, Changchun, 130026, China

    Di Li

Authors
  1. Lina Sun
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  2. Wenxi Lu
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  3. Qingchun Yang
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  4. Jordi Delgado Martín
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  5. Di Li
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Correspondence to Wenxi Lu.

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Sun, L., Lu, W., Yang, Q. et al. Ecological Compensation Estimation of Soil and Water Conservation Based on Cost-Benefit Analysis. Water Resour Manage 27, 2709–2727 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0268-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0268-5

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