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Spatial prioritization of willingness to pay for ecosystem services. A novel notion of distance from origin’s impression

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Abstract

Valuation of environmental goods and services are frequently spatially heterogeneous, the significance of this heterogeneity for policy analysis is gradually recognized. For the valuation of environmental goods and services in the context of attaining a better environmental status across Heihe River basin (HRB), Northwest of China by 2020, a survey was conducted employing choice experiment approach across the entire river basin. In this research we estimate the impact of distance from inland rivers’ origin (spatial attribute) on the inhabitants’ willingness to pay for restoration of ecological attributes. A total of 11 ecological attributes were selected including 6 land related attributes and 5 water related attributes. The present study displays the outcomes of the research planned to examine differences in willingness to pay across different locations/distances. A total of five cities and 33 surround villages/townships were included to examine for location effect, while four ad hoc base distances split samples were recognized for distance effect i.e. ≤100 km, ≤200 km, ≤300 and > 300 km from rivers’ origin. The results of mixed logit model recognized that people living at different locations value the attributes differently. For instance the people of Zhangye region are willing to pay RMB 95.66 annually for improvements in biodiversity while in Gaotai the individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the same attributes was RMB 45.68. Similarly, the respondents’ living nearer to the origin of river were willing to pay relatively higher amount for the upgradation in the degraded ecosystem services than the remainders. The results of willingness to pay obtained by Krinsky Robb method confirmed that the attributes quality of agricultural products and water quality were the most preferred attributes with the willingness to pay RMB 91.09 and 122.89 respectively. The significant results of willingness to pay may serve as a reference for sustainable improvements and uplifting of the degraded ecological attributes.

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Acknowledgements

The survey was sponsored by a major project supported by the National Social Science major Foundation of China (no. 15ZDA052) and Integrated Soil and Water Conservation Technology Research and Demonstration on Loess Plateau, National key R&D Program of China (no. 2016YFC0501707).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Sufyan Ullah Khan

  2. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Guobin Liu

  3. College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Minjuan Zhao, Qian Lu, Arshad Ahmad Khan & Muhammad Abu Sufyan Ali

  4. Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, 1-1 Ohwashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8686, Japan

    Hsiaoping Chien

  5. Department of Entomology, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan

    Misbahullah

Authors
  1. Sufyan Ullah Khan
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  2. Guobin Liu
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  3. Minjuan Zhao
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  4. Hsiaoping Chien
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  5. Qian Lu
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  6. Arshad Ahmad Khan
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  7. Muhammad Abu Sufyan Ali
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  8. Misbahullah
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Correspondence to Guobin Liu or Minjuan Zhao.

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Khan, S.U., Liu, G., Zhao, M. et al. Spatial prioritization of willingness to pay for ecosystem services. A novel notion of distance from origin’s impression. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 3100–3112 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06538-4

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