Values Of The Ecosystem Services And The Land Use Scenarios Of Jiuduansha Wetland In Shanghai

As the loss of wild nature to satisfy traditional economic development has become a global environmental problem in recent decades, using ecosystem valuation to estimate the total economic value (TEV) of an ecosystem has become popular.The main purpose of ecosystem valuation is to strengthen the importance of ecosystems and bring its services into cost-benefit analyses of land use strategy. Some studies have illustrated that in remote areas, the wild can produce more value as conservation than under traditional agricultural or industrial uses. The same situation does not seem to exist in vigorous economic regions. Thus, a case study was conducted on the Jiuduansha Wetland in Shanghai to estimate values of the .ecosystem services within different scenarios, conservation, selective use and partial converting.It can be definced that there are mainly nine services provided by the Jiuduansha Wetland, Food production, Raw materials production, Recreation supply, Land creation, Gas and climate regulation, Disturbance prevention, Waste treatment, Cultural andartistic information supply and Spiritual and historic information supply. The prior four services can be classified into Direct services, while the latter five services are classified into Indirect services.Three approaches, the Direct Market Valuation, the Replacement Valuation and the Contingent Valuation were used to evaluate the net present TEVs of the three land use scenarios in one hundred years. The results proved that simply based on ecosystem valuation, when compared with the other two scenarios of "conservation" and "selective use" , the "partial converting" into terrene (dry land) of Jiuduansha might be the optimal scenario for the well-being of the people in Shanghai.Land price was identified as the most important factor. This situation is likely due to the scarcity of land available for traditional economic development in Shanghai. However, the variety of interest by local residents on the wilderness might enhance the TEVs of scenarios of "conservation" and "selective use" , and affect the valuation results. Since some important ecosystem services remain unknown and others are underestimated, we suggested that any land use decisions regarding Jiuduansha Wetland should be conservative and cautious as converting wetlands into terrene is an irreversible process.