| Valuation of environmental goods and services are frequently spatially heterogeneous and the significance of this heterogeneity for policy analysis is gradually recognized.River ecosystem services offer a variety of benefits to the inhabitants of inland areas.For the valuation of environmental goods and services in the context of attaining a better environmental status across Heihe river basin(HRB)Northwest of China by 2020,a survey was conducted employing choice experiment approach across the entire Heihe river basin.The present study addresses the comparison between welfare estimates for changes in the conservation of river basins and improving ecological attributes of Heihe river basin,and to determine the impact of spatial heterogeneity and distance effect of willingness to pay for integrated river basin management.The selected ecological attributes were defined in combination with ecological improvements in the three sub-basins namely upper,middle and lower sub-basins.For estimating spatial preference heterogeneity,the benefits for the inhabitants were estimated by conditional logit and mixed logit models.A total of 11 ecological attributes were selected including 6 land related attributes and 5 water related attributes.The present study displays the outcomes of the research planned to examine differences in willingness to pay across different locations/distances.A total of five cities and 33 surround villages/townships were included to examine for location effect.Results indicated that the willingness to pay(WTP)estimates for river water quality,farmland irrigation,sandstorm days,lake area and leisure & entertainment were significantly different across sub-basins.Similarly,the results also recognized that people living at different sub-basins value the land attributes differently i.e.cultivated land yield,Quality of agricultural products,Ejinaqi Oasis Size,biodiversity,greenhouse gas emission reduction and Farmland Landscape.For instance,the people of Zhangye region are willing to pay RMB 95.66 annually for improvements in biodiversity while in Gaotai the households' willingness to pay(WTP)for the same attributes was RMB 45.68.By comparing the transfer error,this study examines the feasibility of transferring benefits across populations and sites.This study reveals that the estimated benefits are higher for the lower basin than for the middle and upper basins,and respondent preferences for relative improvements in environmental attributes vary across the basins.The estimates of mixed logit model indicated the reduced transfer errors with the insertion of taste heterogeneity.However,transferring benefits from middle sub-basin to upper sub-basin the estimated transfer errors were 27.3%,from lower to middle the transfer errors were 23.4% and from upper to lower the transfer errors were 14.1%.Our obtained results recommends the transferability of non-market benefits among sub-basins.Spatial heterogeneity and distances effect of WTP was assessed for the ecological attributes improvement in Heihe river basin.The results suggested that there is significant impact of distance on the households' WTP for the improvements in environmental attributes.Such as the people living within the range of 25 Km from the river are willing to pay more for increase in the river water quality level,reduction in sand storm days and increase in the area of east Juyan Lake than the people living within the range of 50 Km and more than 50 Km away from the river.While predicting from the socio-economic characteristics level of education,age,household's annual income and household size have significant effect on the willingness to pay.Results of the implicit prices for each attribute show the preferences of the inhabitants for every attribute.The highest willingness to pay in pooled data was recorded for river water quality level i.e.RMB 124.81/ year and lowest for leisure and entertainment i.e.RMB 0.40/year.The highest willingness to pay for water quality revealed that water quality level was the most favored attribute compared to others,subject to the given conditions of water quality and the river basin.We also estimate the impact of distance from inland rivers' origin(spatial attribute)on the inhabitants' willingness to pay for restoration of ecological attributes.A choice experiment technique was designed to elicit public preferences regarding ecological attributes.The present study displays the outcomes of the research planned to examine differences in willingness to pay across different locations/distances.Four ad hoc base distances split samples were recognized for distance effect i.e.?100 km,?200 km,?300 and >300 km from rivers' origin.The results of mixed logit model recognized that people living at different locations value the attributes differently.For instance the people of Zhangye region are willing to pay RMB 95.66 annually for improvements in biodiversity while in Gaotai the individuals' willingness to pay(WTP)for the same attributes was RMB 45.68.Similarly,the respondents' living nearer to the origin of river were willing to pay relatively higher amount for the upgradation in the degraded ecosystem services than the remainders.The results of willingness to pay obtained by Krinsky Robb method confirmed that the attributes quality of agricultural products and water quality were the most preferred attributes with the willingness to pay RMB 91.09 and 122.89 respectively.As such this study determines that the non-market benefits which may accumulate from diverse kinds of improvements in ecological attributes are nuanced in terms of their environmental impacts,their potential beneficiaries and,by inference,their overall value and policy implications.The selected attributes need much more attention from the government as well as from the inhabitants of the Heihe river basin. |
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