Can ecological restoration strengthen farm household livelihood resilience? Evidence from the Shan-Shui project and CHFS panel data
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Background Large-scale ecological restoration is increasingly expected to improve ecosystems and strengthen the capacity of rural communities to cope with shocks, yet credible household-level evidence remains limited. Methods This study links the China household finance survey (CHFS) with the Shan-Shui project (SSP) and uses a difference-in-differences design to estimate the effect of integrated ecological restoration on farm household livelihood resilience. Results The fully controlled estimate is 0.1610, equivalent to about 2.7% of the sample mean of livelihood resilience. The result remains robust across parallel-trends and placebo tests, propensity-score matching, lagged outcomes, household fixed effects, province-level clustering, alternative sample windows and outcome construction, an instrumental-variable specification, and heterogeneity-robust estimators for staggered treatment timing. Channel tests indicate that the SSP is associated with regional industrial upgrading, household asset accumulation, and a higher probability of entrepreneurship. The policy effect is more pronounced among high-asset households, households in major grain-producing regions, households without government assistance, and households in areas covered by the broadband China program. Conclusions These findings show that the social value of ecological restoration depends not only on ecological recovery but also on whether households can convert new resources and opportunities into durable livelihood capabilities.
Authors: Jiayu Yang, Xiliu Lin, Dan Li, Jingtong Zhang
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,353
OpenAlex ID: W7223373284