Accounting of public preferences and valuation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem services restoration: Evidence from Northwestern China

Abstract

The emphasis of current study is on the assessment of households’ willingness to pay (WTP) and preference heterogeneity for the upgradation of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem services across sub-basins of Heihe River. A sum of 1679 households were interviewed through choice experiment, and random parameter logit model is applied for welfare estimation. The estimated results signified the importance of selected terrestrial and aquatic ecological attributes. Sampled respondents of upper and middle basins placed highest WTP for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases among all other attributes and the WTP amount was 99.27 and 66.49 Yuan/Year respectively. Whereas in lower basin, improvement in landscape of farmland was highly valued, i.e., 107 Yuan/Year. In terrestrial ecosystem services the lowest WTP was recorded for Ejinaqi oasis size in all sub basins. In aquatic ecosystem services, improving water quality was the most valued attribute in all sub basins, and the corresponding WTP values are 122.81, 99.87 and 177.43 Yuan/Year in upper, middle and lower basins respectively, which ensure the significance of water quality in the entire basin. In aquatic ecosystem services the lowest WTP amount was recorded for leisure and entertainment conditions in each sub basin.

Keywords:

• Choice experiment approach
• random parameter logit model
• spatially heterogeneous preferences
• Krinsky-Robb technique
• terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem services

JEL CODES:

• Q51; Q56; Q57

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is supported by Key Research Project of the Ministry of Education’s Philosophy and Social Sciences "Research on improving the market-oriented mechanism of technological innovation" (14JZD010); Major Project of Shandong Province’s key R & D Program in 2019 (Soft Science): "Research on the strategy of deepening scientific and technological cooperation and creating a new highland for opening-up"(2019RZB02013).