| Wetland is one of the three most important ecosystems on the earth. It is significant not only in maintaining the regional and global ecological balances, but also in providing living environment for wild plants and animals. However, wetland has become one of the badly destroyed ecosystems due to the bad awareness of the functions and values of wetland in the past. As a result, area and functions of wetland decreased sharply and its ecological benefit was endangered heavily. The loss of wetland around the world and the awareness of the value of wetland made the wetland restoration become one of the priorities. Although wetlands provide tremendous ecological and social benefits to human, it is still difficult to evaluate accurately the value of wetland. In practice, wetlands are often underestimated because many functions are not traded in markets and therefore remain un-priced. As a result, wetlands were destroyed or converted for other utilities, which were threatening the sustainable development of human society. In order to achieve regional sustainable development and make reasonable policies, it is necessary to understand and assessment the ecosystem services value of wetlands accurately. Nowadays, many studies have concentrated on the ecological value of natural wetlands, but there are relatively few studies on the project benefits of reverting cultivated land to wetlands, which is necessary information for resource management and policy making.With the increasing scarcity of natural resources and environmental damage, people begin to realize the importance of taking ecosystem services value into the market system. Ecological compensation, which provids information of ecological protection to decision makers and combines ecological science with economics, has developed into an effective means to solve these environmental problems.Ecological compensation is a new way to solve the problem in some countries and regions, and it becomes more and more important to balance between the ecological protection and the development of economy and society. Yet, environmental economists and ecologists are still debating on the valuing of environmental services, which prevents the extensive development of ecological compensation.The South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a key project for sustainable development in China, and the Nansi Lake serves as an important buffer lake of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (east route). However, the rapid processes of reclamation and economic development brought about a fast deterioration of river water quality over the past decades. The ecological environment of the lakeshore wetland has been seriously damaged, partly due to excessive water pollution from industrial and agricultural sources, and partly due to continuing conversion from wetlands to cultivated lands, fish ponds, and residential areas. In order to guarantee water quality of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (east route) and rehabilitate the degraded lakeshore wetland system, the government of Shandong Province started a huge lakeshore wetland restoration project in 2008. The government pays farmers for transforming their farmland to wetlands to reduce non-point source pollution, improve water quality and restore the degraded wetland ecosystem. Until now, the standard of ecological compensation is still under discussion.In this study, land uses and their changes were categorized and mapped between 1987 and 2009. The methods in landscape ecology and ecosystem valuing were employed to analyse the conversions among land uses and determine the changes of various ecosystem in different phases. The effects of natural factors and human activities on wetland ecological environment of Nansi Lake were also analyzed. The results showed that, wetland ecosystems have been seriously damaged in the past 10 years, and wetland played an important role in purifying the environment of Nansi Lake. The strategy of reverting cultivated land to wetland project was designed at end of this part.The ecosystem value and Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) were employed to analysis the ecosystem services benefits and economic returns of reverting cultivated land to wetland project. The results showed that the reverting cultivated lands to wetlands project in Nansi Lake generated significantly greater ecosystem services in all kinds of farmlands, and it could effectively reduce the lakeshore non-point pollution and effectively improve the water quality of the drainage areas. Take all factors into consideration, the low-productive croplands and vegetable fields were suggested to be reverted firstly.In order to provide practical advices on ecological compensation, Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used to survey the farmer's willingness of reverting cultivated land to wetland with a questionnaire. Using survey results of willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA), we evaluated the related factors on accepting compensation and paying for the cultivated lands combined with correlation analysis and regression analysis. At last, based on the results of the analysis, a feasible framework of ecological compensation was suggested and reasonable payment amount was calculated.In brief, Cost Benefit Analysis and Contingent Valuation Method were used to evaluate the benefit of reverting cultivated lands to wetlands project in Nansi Lake valley, a feasible framework of ecological compensation was suggested and reasonable payment amount was calculated. Moreover, some reasonable and useful suggestions were provided to the government. The results will significantly promote the application and sustainable development of the project of reverting cultivated lands to wetlands. |
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