Residents’ Heterogenous Preferences For Ecosystem Services In Hei River Basin

Water shortages constrain development is a worldwide problem.To solve the problem in the area,it is necessary to carry out the whole basin joint management.Hei River Basin as a typical representative area of northwest China on water shortage and delicate ecological environment,its ecological crisis got great concern of the party and the country.And many special polices has been made to solve these problems.The experience of management of Hei River Basin shows that river has externality,so ecological management needs to coordinate and reconcile overall demands of different stakeholders,especially among upstream,midstream and downstream.It is the premise and foundation of improving the effectiveness of the ecological management policy to accurate identifies the heterogeneous preference of ecosystem services among the residents in different basins.The research is based on welfare economics,using nonmarket valuation method,selecting China’s second inland river—Hei river and residents’ preference on wetland ecosystem services as study subjects to organize the theoretical model of this paper.Then,applying Choice Experiment and conducting questionnaire survey through face-to-face interviews to access the required data.Next,using Random Parameter Logit model,and based on the willingness to pay,to test whether that the heterogeneous preferences on wetland ecosystem services exist or not.Further,we calculate the nonmarket value that bring into heterogeneous preferences of residents of improving wetland ecosystem services,revealing the intrinsic value of ecological management policy.The results show that there did exist heterogeneous preference among upstream,midstream and downstream.If the heterogeneous preference was ignored when adding willingness to pay,the value of improving wetland ecosystem services will be overestimated.(1)From the preference ranking perspective,provisioning service is the most preferred ecosystem services to upstream and midstream residents.Downstream residents’ most preferred services is regulating service,and provisioning service ranks second.Overall,cultural service is the least preferred services.(2)For provisioning service,regulating service and supporting service,there did exist heterogeneous preference among upstream,midstream and downstream residents.(1)In provisioning service,while water quality improving to standard 2,midstream residents have the lowest preference level,and upstream and downstream residents have the same preference level.While water quality improving from standard 3 level to status level,downstream residents’ preference is significantly higher than midstream residents’ preference.This index didn’t influence upstream residents.The rate of secure farming irrigation only influenced midstream residents.For regulating service,the(2)preference level of the downstream residents is significantly higher than that of the upstream residents,while the midstream have no significant preference.(3)For supporting service,only the downstream residents have significant preference;(3)All upstream,midstream and downstream residents have no significant preference on cultural service at present.(4)For the improvement of the overall ecosystem services in Hei River Basin,the preference level of upstream,midstream and downstream residents are different.Downstream residents have the highest preference level,their WTP is 1.8 multiple to upstream residents’ WTP and 4.4 multiple to midstream residents’ WTP.Without distinction between the upstream,midstream and downstream,the increase in nonmarket value of ecosystem services in the Hei River Basin will be overestimated by at least 19.68% over the actual increase.The optimization of the ecological management of Hei River Basin,the first is to strengthen the management of water quality in Hei River Basin and establish relevant monitoring mechanisms;the second is to strengthen the construction of water-saving society in the region;the third is to continue to strengthen the construction of ecological protection and restoration program of Hei River Basin,especially in the downstream area;the last is to postpone the cultural service projects.