Developing ecological compensation standards for water resources: evidence from the Enshi section of the Qingjiang River Basin
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: River basin ecological compensation is a major strategic decision and deployment made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council.It is of great significance to balance the interests of the river basin and promote sustainable development to carry out the study of ecological compensation standards from the perspective of the compensated. Based on this, this paper takes the Enshi section of the Qingjiang River Basin as the research object, uses the environmental cost to calculate the ecological compensation standard of the basin, and uses the water quantity apportionment coefficient and the water quality correction coefficient to adjust the accounting results, to explore the the standard of water resource ecological compensation needed by the upstream recipients. In order to provide a scientific basis for the implementation of the ecological compensation mechanism of the basin from the practical aspect. The study shows that the direct cost of Enshi section of Qingjiang River Basin is 733,148,400 yuan/a, and the opportunity cost is 122,243,800 yuan/a. The water quantity apportionment coefficient Kvt (0.27), and the correction coefficient of water quality Kqt (1.075) are introduced into the total cost, and finally the eco-compensation standard based on the correction of the total cost is derived as 33,504.014 million yuan/a. In China, the central financial transfer funds generally require local governments to match according to 1:1, so the compensation amount of 167.5 million yuan accounted for in this paper is not much different from the central budget funds of 129.5 million yuan, which verifies the rationality of the method,but it still indicates that the amount of compensation from the central budget funds should be increased appropriately.
Authors: Wei Yujie, Xu Zixi, Wang Ran, Ye Chenxi
Institutions: Huanggang Normal University, China University of Geosciences
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7140206824