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Determining the price of water yield service is the core of watershed compensation. This is necessary to establish a reasonable and scientific compensation mechanism and achieve the efficient management of water. Unlike previous studies, this study establishes a theoretical model of pricing and a compensation mechanism for achieving a balance between the supply and demand of water yield service. A panel threshold model is used to estimate the production elasticity of water for pricing water yield service. Then, we analyze the spatial and temporal changes of the price and the compensation amounts of water yield service in the Wei River basin, China. The results show that: (1) The water marginal contribution to regional GDP meets the law of diminishing marginal return in the form of the threshold effect. When water input amounts (logarithm) are on both sides of 9.449, the marginal contribution is significantly different. (2) The price of water yield service shows an increasing trend. It was CNY 47.27/m3 in 2015, increasing by 472.94% compared with 2000 (CNY 8.24/m3). The spatial distribution was “high in the southeast and low in the northwest”. (3) Total payment amounts increased from CNY 33.1955 billion in 2000 to CNY 227.1302 billion in 2015 and were mainly distributed in relatively developed areas. The acceptance areas were concentrated in relatively undeveloped areas. Total acceptance amounts increased from CNY 2922.2 million in 2000 to CNY 16,398.6 million in 2015. This study can provide scientific basis for ecological compensation practices and promote high-quality development of the socio-economy of the watershed.

The Chinese government is attempting to readjust the relationship of farmland rights by farmland rights system reform to optimize the allocation of farmland by market means. Therefore, this study is aimed at exploring the effectiveness of the farmland rights system reform from decentralization to centralization and its impacts on agricultural modernization. In this study, the shift theory of land rights is introduced to analyze the approach of the reform promoting agricultural modernization, and the practice of Yuyang District as evidence illustrates that the reform is a further extension of the land marketization reform, which clears the obstacles of market allocation of farmlands and promotes agricultural modernization by achieving three objectives of agricultural production. The results of this study show the reform is beneficial to a high level of yield, efficient production, and environment friendly in agricultural production, so the reform indirectly promotes agricultural modernization. Meanwhile, Yuyang District’s experiences show that the farmland issue is a complex one, which should be considered from the perspectives of public benefits and private benefits, and appropriate farmland rights system reform is a policy accelerator for facilitating agricultural modernization. Generally, this study not only innovatively links the farmland rights system reform with the three objectives of agricultural production to analysis impact mechanism of the reform on agricultural modernization, but it also confirms the effectiveness of the reform design of the central government and provides some advanced experiences for other regions.

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