The establishment of a cross-regional differentiated ecological compensation scheme based on the benefit areas and benefit levels of sand-stabilization ecosystem service

Integrating Ecosystem Services Supply, Demand and Flow in Ecological Compensation: A Case Study of Carbon Sequestration Services

“…Currently, most of the studies on ecosystem service flows focus on water ecosystem services, because the spatial flow processes and transfer paths can be better quantitatively analyzed and simulated [88]. There are also some studies that depict the sand control ecosystem service flows [38,81]. In this study, although the CS flows in Yantai showed a decaying pattern in space, the directional differences between counties were significant.…”

“…In contrast to the internationally popular PES, the concept of ecological compensation (EC) is currently used in China [35][36][37][38][39][40]. The concept of EC is essentially the same as that of PES [10].…”

“…However, the current EC standard is based on the financial capacity of local governments and is decided by high-level government agencies after a mutual game. The lack of clear EC standards among stakeholders, the lack of sufficient scientific basis for the funding ratio, and the lack of more detailed scientific research on the scope of EC have caused major flaws in the design of the EC scheme for the water environment in the Xin'an River Basin [17,38]. In the existing EC scheme, the ambiguity of the scope and amount of benefits usually leads to conflicts among stakeholders.…”

“…In the existing EC scheme, the ambiguity of the scope and amount of benefits usually leads to conflicts among stakeholders. This is an important reason why the central government is still the main payer of EC in China, despite the long implementation period [38]. Generally speaking, China's EC system is still in its infancy and has yet to establish a comprehensive system and method to determine the subject and target of compensation, compensation standards, compensation methods, and funding sources [32,50].…”

A County-Scale Spillover Ecological Value Compensation Standard of Ecological Barrier Area in China: Based on an Extended Emergy Analysis

“…At present, China adopts a government-led EC mechanism, in which the most common method of government support in river basin EC is to establish an EC fund jointly funded by stakeholders [19]. This method can solve the problem of cross-regional EC to some extent, but due to the limitation of administrative region, compensation often occurred at the provincial level or municipal level, which resulted in the lack of more detailed scientific research on the specific scope of EC [20]. Milder et al pointed out that the existing instances of PES benefiting the poor have been limited mainly to specific localities, small-scale projects, and a handful of broader government programs [21].…”