Study On The Ecological Compensation For The Drinking Water Source In The Less-Developed Area

Ecological compensation have received increasing attention in the field of both economics and ecology. Although a complete ecological compensation system has been appealed for many years in China, the principles of compensation, the compensation standards, compensation objects and compensation procedures are still under exploration. Both the emperical researches and practices on ecological compensation are at the early stage of devleopment in China. For example, the study on the compensation for the drinking water source from the less-developed region is rare due to incomplete compensation system.Due to the environmental duty of the water resource protection, the economic development of the drinking water source area is limited. As a public resource, the ecological benefit of the drinking water source doesn’t receive corresponding economic compensation. The current prices of resource products such as water resources fail to reflect the lack of resources. The spatial distributions of economic development level is inconsistent with that of the water resources in China. The drainage basin of the drinking water sources are usually located in economically less-developed areas. These areas usually show poor competitive power comparing to the developed regions. Besides, some other limitations also slow down the economic development in the economically less-developed regions. All these factors attribute to the imbalance between the drinking water source area and developed regions, and exhibit an adverse impact on the strategy of sustainable development. Therefore, for the economic developing regions, establishing an effective mechanism of ecological compensation is an useful way to resolve the conflict between the drinking water sources protection areas and other areas..The present paper combined with the public goods theory, the theory of externalities, the sustainable development theory and the theories of ecosystem service values, we studied three crucial issues of the mechanism of ecological compensation:who compensates whom, how to compensate and how much should be compensated. In addition, this paper took the Luoma Lake area as an example in empirical research, and investigated the problems of ecological compensation for the drinking water source area. The results have an significant value in the water resources protection, ecological development of water environment and reducing the risk and pressure of the drinking water source in Jiangsu Province.The main conclusions are as follows:1. The ecological compensation of drinking water source in less-developed area should follow the principles of "fairness", "pay for pollution, beneficiaries compensation and protectors be benefited", "feasibility", "compensation shared by the government and market" and "transparency".2. We identified the ecological compensation subject and object of the drinking water source area, "who compensates whom". All beneficiaries of the drinking water source protection should be the subject of ecological compensation, and the ecological protectors and the groups whose development were impacted should be considered as the objects.. According to the result of comparisom between Xinyi City with Suqian City on ecosystem services value, the total value of ecosystem services is 316 million RMB, of which the beneficial amount of the downstream area is 229 million RMB. Xinyi’s interest is reduced, should be considered as the object of compensation, and Suqian, as the beneficiary from the downstream should be the main subject of compensation.3. The potential loss due to the limited development right should be considered as the point of the ecological compensation to the drinking water source areas. Ecological protection and construction of the drinking water source will affect the regional development. For the industrial development of an ecological protection region, especially for that in the near future, the most direct effect is the limited economic development. In the mechanism of ecological compensation for the economically less-developed areas, the potential loss due to the limited development right should be considered as the key point. Recently, in order to protect the safety of drinking water sources from Luoma lake upstream area, Xinyi City carried out a lot of works in structural industrial adjustment, ecological construction, pollution treatment, and so on. It is necessary to implement the ecological compensation for Luoma lake area. Based on the perspective of industrial loss and the effects of inflation, the opportunity loss of the Luoma drinking water sources area is estimated.4. The goal of the model of ecological compensation for the drinking water source is to address the core issue of "how to compensate".According to the role of government, the extent of market-oriented and sources of compensation funding, the ecological compensation model can be divided into three types: government compensation model, quasi-market model and market-oriented model. This study suggests that the ecological compensation for the economically less-developed areas should comprehensively use the aboved three models, and the pathway of ecological compensation should include economic compensation, policy compensation, intelligence compensation, technology compensation and economic cooperation, and so on. The establishment of ecological compensation mechanism of Luoma drinking water sources area needs to improve the management mechanism and utilize the joint functions of government, market and society.5. The key of ecological compensation standard for the drinking water source area is "how much should be compensated".The amount of compensation directly relates to the effects of compensation and the interests of compensation subjects. The comprehensive ecological compensation should not only include the cost of protecting the drinking water sources, but also the potential loss due to the limited development right and the ecosystem service values. This paper combines the direct cost with the opportunity cost of the ecological environmental protection, and brings in the theory of ecosystem service value evaluation. Considering the social and economic status, the willingness to compensate and the willingness to accept, a theoretical standard model of ecological compensation for the drinking water source in less-developed area has been established. According to results of empirical analysis of Luoma, the direct cost for ecological and environmental protection of Xinyi is 8.91 million RMB in 2011, the opportunity cost is 164 million RMB, and the beneficial amount of downstream area on ecosystem service value is 229 million RMB.Based on the questionnaires and the adjustment of cross-region allotment factor, the minimum amounts of compensation that should be offerred by beneficiaries from downstream area are suggested:Suyu District 23 million RMB, Sucheng District 21 million RMB and Suqian new urban district 3 million RMB; at the same time, the upper limit of compensation is also estimated:Suyu District 40 million RMB, Sucheng District 36 million RMB, Suqian new urban district 5.8 million RMB.