Research On Eco-compensation Of Cross-border Water Source From A Multi-governance Perspective

The watershed ecosystem has been increasingly influenced by human behaviors,which has resulted increasing tensions and conflicts among the riparian stakeholders of transboundary river basins.Watershed eco-compensation,as an important environmental management tool,can coordinate the benefit-sharing among stakeholders of transboundary river basins.However,traditional government-led ecocompensation reduces negative externalities through the authority-based approach,which leads to lack of marketization,fairness,and sustainability.With the establishment of the Modern Environmental Governance System in China,the public,enterprise,and social organizations are playing more important roles in environmental governance.However,it remains to be solved how to construct the governance relationship among stakeholders in watershed eco-compensation and to stimulate the positive externalities.Under the “The Yangtze River Delta Integration Plan(YRDI)”,the Yangtze River Delta Eco-green Integrated Demonstration Zone aims to break administrative barriers and to achieve co-governance,co-construction and re-sharing of transboundary ecological resources.Taipu River,as an important transboundary water source and the“water corridor” in the Demonstration Zone,flows through Jiangsu Province,Zhejiang Province,and Shanghai City,and is the water source for southwest Shanghai.Normally,the upstream of a transboundary water source focuses on ecological function,while the downstream on production function.On the contrary,the upstream of the Taipu River focuses on the production function,and the downstream on ecological function.Besides,the textile industry is agglomerated upstream.Besides,the textile industry is agglomerated upstream.Through it can meet the emission standards,the amount of regional environment is insufficient.Therefore,the eco-compensation model of the Xin’an River cannot be applied to the Taipu River,which calls for a multi-governance model of eco-compensation for the Taipu river.This study discusses the multigovernance model of eco-compensation involving the municipal enterprise,the public,the watershed management agency,and the government.In doing so this study aims to promote the theoretical development of the watershed eco-compensation.From a multi-governance perspective,this study sets out to explore the connotations and goals of the multi-governance of eco-compensation,as well as the relationship among stakeholders and the multi-governance models of ecocompensation.Besides,with the Taipu River as an empirical case,this study identified the relationships among watershed management agencies,governments,enterprises,and the public.As such,this study proposes three types of eco-compensation models:the Contract Governance model,the Participatory Governance model,and the Cooperative Governance model.The main findings of this study are as follows:1.Theoretically,this study proposes an eco-compensation of cross-border water source from a multi-governance perspective,explores its connotations and goals,as well as the relationships among governing subjects.Moreover,this study extends the governing subjects in eco-compensation to River Basin Authorities(RBA),the municipal enterprises,the governments,and the public instead of a single-centered governance.Besides,this study discusses the governance relationship between upstream and downstream government,between the government and the enterprise,and between the public and the government.In doing so,this study proposed three types of multi-governance eco-compensation models: the Contract Governance model(CGM)which emphasizes the participatory of the municipal enterprises,the Participatory governance model(PGM),and the Cooperative governance model(CPGM)which emphasized the participatory of the RBA,which emphasizes the participatory of the public.2.With the Taipu River as a typical case,this study applies Water Quality Index(WQI),Self-organizing Maps(SOM),and Coupling Coordination Model(CDM)to analyze the water resource conflicts in the Taipu River.This study identifies the governing subjects,and proposes the framework of multi-governance ecocompensation models.The result shows that:1)There are water quality conflicts between the upstream and downstream of the Taipu river.The WQI of the Taipu River is on the rise at first and then on the decline.The water quality of the downstream water supply is affected by upstream water;2)The textile industry is agglomerated upstream and can meet the emission standards,but insufficient regional environment leads to transboundary antimony(Sb)pollution;3)The result of CCM is 0.4046 in the Taipu River,which means the economic interest and environmental interest among the Wujiang government,the Jiashan government,and the Qingpu government are inconsistent and call for transboundary coordination;4)The RBA,upstream and downstream governments,upstream municipal enterprises,downstream municipal enterprises,upstream public,and the downstream public are identified as the governing subjects to build multi-governance eco-compensation models in the Taipu River Basin.3.Focusing on the governance relationship between the municipal enterprise and the government in eco-compensation,this study builds the Cross-border Pollution Index to explore the degree of antimony pollution and its spatial distribution.In doing so,this study puts forward the CGM of eco-compensation in the Taipu River.The result shows that: 1)The upstream textile industry can meet the emission standards of environmental management.However,the load and concentration of antimony are high in the tributary,which requires the municipal enterprise to update the sewage treatment capacity;2)The result of the CPI shows spatial difference,revealing that high-conflict areas are mainly located in the south bank of the Taipu River,including Shengze Town,Tianning Town,Wangjiangjing Town,and Pingwang Town,where the textile enterprises are agglomerated;3)The CGM in the Taipu River includes the upstream municipal enterprises as one of the stakeholders,and seeks to build the governance relationship between the municipal enterprises and the governments through costsharing mechanism for cross-boundary municipal services.The amount of CGM ecocompensation is about 102 million yuan in the Taipu River Basin.4.For the governance relationship between the public and the government in ecocompensation,this study relates factors of Risk perception(RP),Environmental Concern(EC),Satisfaction with government work(SGW),and Knowledge of the Environment(KE)to the Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB)model.Through the Structural equation model and the Contingent valuation method(CVM),this study constructs the eco-compensation intention model of the upstream and the downstream respectively,and explores the driving factors of the public’s eco-compensation intention.On this basis,this study proposes the PGM of eco-compensation in the Taipu River.The results shows that: 1)Behavioural attitude(0.581**),subjective norms(0.806***),SGW(0.274**),and KE(0.694*)are the driving factors in upstream public’s ecocompensation intention;2)Behavioural attitude(0.406**),perceived behavioral control(0.147*),RP(0.213*)are the driving factors in downstream public’s ecocompensation intention;3)The PGM of eco-compensation includes the public as one of the stakeholders,and advocate the cooperative relationship between the public and government through the payment mechanism for the transboundary water resource.The eco-compensation amount of the PGM is about 154.4 million yuan in the Taipu River Basin.5.In view of the governance relationship between the upstream and downstream governments,this study builds a spatial conflict index to evaluate the spatial conflicts in the Taipu River basin.Besides,this study employs the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution(GMCR)to explore the decision-making conflicts and evolutionary relationship among the BRA,the upstream government,and the downstream government.Based on the above,this study puts forward the CPGM of ecocompensation in the Taipu River.The result shows that: 1)There is an obvious spatial conflict in the Taipu River Basin due to the conflicts between the upstream and downstream governments.The spatial conflict index is 0.607 indicating a medium conflict level.The spatial management of the watershed is yet to be improved,which requires the cooperation of the upstream and downstream governments;2)The BRA plays an important role in the eco-compensation of the transboundary river.The BRA can change the conflict into cooperation in the Taipu River Basin by constructing the governance relationship between the watershed management agency and the government;3)The CPGM of eco-compensation includes the BRA as one of the stakeholders,and build the governance relationship between the BRA and the governments to promote the cooperative management of watershed.The ecocompensation amount of the CPGM is about 262 million yuan in the Taipu River Basin based on the ecosystem service value of Wujiang and Jiashan in 2018.This study constructs a multi-governance model of eco-compensation in the transboundary water source and expands the watershed eco-compensation model from a government-led to a multi-subject participation model,including the watershed management agency,the governments,the municipal enterprises,the public,and social organizations.In doing so,this study provides theoretical support for the construction of a diversified and market-oriented watershed eco-compensation model in the Yangtze River Delta.