Ecological compensation standards of wetland restoration projects

Abstract

Establishing a framework for evaluating the ecological compensation standard (ECS) of wetland restoration projects (WRPs) is significant for providing scientific support for sustainable conservation of wetland systems and guiding financial collection from various aspects. In this study, the complex framework for evaluating the ECS of WRPs I (with wetland park) and WRPs II (without wetland park) was developed. In addition to the same index of cost-benefit for WRPs I and II, the effect of increasing housing prices in the surrounding areas of a wetland is an additional consideration for WRPs I. By comparing the construction and daily management costs of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with the costs of WRPs, and using the contingent valuation method (CVM), the environmental benefit of WRPs and public WWTPs were obtained. This framework was applied to 10 WRPs within Taihu Lake Basin, China. The results showed that the WWTP for WRPs I and II were 2.09·104 USD·ha-1·yr-1 and 1.82·104 USD·ha-1·yr-1, respectively. Considering the land-transferring fees of the surrounding area of WRPs I, subsidies from the government can be according to the compensation standard of WRPs II. Thus, if the public willingness to pay for supporting WRPs can be implemented in real-ity, the government need not pay extra compensation for WRPs. In the absence of a public WWTP, the government only needs to pay WRPs II 0.08·104 USD·ha-1·yr-1 to ensure the construction and operation of WRPs II and I. With the help of ECS established in this study, decision makers can obtain a differentiated compensation standard by incorporating reward and punishment mechanisms. By analyzing the cost and benefit of WRPs, the approaches for increasing capital sources of ecological compensation for WRPs were recom-mended, including improvement in public awareness of the wetland ecosystem services, capturing the public WTP, ticketing wetland park entries, land-transferring fees, and the integration of the above methods.