A Study On Urban Forest Welfare Benefit Evaluation

Improving the residents welfare was the main goal of urban forest construction. The income, employment, housing, health and cultural conditions are the key indicators to the welfare evaluation. In this dissertation, it analysised the contribution of forest to these key indicators in Qingdao as a case study, incorporate forest-related indicators into residents welfare index,calculate the urban residents welfare index, urban forest welfare index to analysis the urban forest welfare benefits. Some policy proposals are token up such as the tax system,eco-efficient compensation system,property rights systems.It found the forest may upgrade the prices of house through establish forests-housing prices model and analysis estate price by different green coverage housing area and at different distances from the forest in Qingdao city. The estate value-added 2.508 billion yuan due to housing area greening in 2007 in Qingdao and 1.511 billion yuan due to adjacent to forest .The total value reached 4019 million yuan. Increase in housing prices caused reduction in welfare of resident However, eco-benefit can make up for welfare losses by housing prices increase.Forests can improve the city's ecological environment and social environment and provide residents with recreational facilities so as to improve their physical and mental conditions then improve health of residents. Qingdao's forest health benefits is 243 million by improving the ecological environment as PM10 exposure - response relationship to assess and 80 million through provide training places referencing to the evaluation of the Philadelphia Park Board data to evaluating and the total value is 324 million.Urban forest have cultural welfare benefits witch include entertainment culture,traditional culture,education,science and technology,social harmony mainly.It used the cost method of expenditure,the actual effectiveness method,the cost method,tree evaluation mothed,travel cost method to evaluate the forest's cultural welfare benefit. The the value of Qingdao forest's recreation is 3.491 billion yuan,improving education is 0.99 billion, promoting science and technology is 0.94 billion,promoting social progress is3.15 billion yuan and cultural preservation is 1.52 billion yuan.Through constructing CGE model of three departments as forestry, agriculture and other industries the ecological capital is maked to be a factor of other industries. basing on national accounts data in Qingdao in 2007. The urban forest's income and employment benefit. is analysised...It indicate the residents total income shall reduce 774 million yuan when the forests absence in Qingdao City and the per-capital wages shall reduce 23.62 yuan,the employment rate of urban population shall get down 0.53 percent. urban residents income and employment rate will be a slight increase when the forest area increased. The highest point is in forest cover of 60% -70%,but after more than 70%,income and employment are both decreased substantially because of lack of land and lack of effective demand of other industries.Forest-related indicators should be incorporated into the comprehensive evaluation of welfare as forests have visible welfare benefits. A urban life welfare index is developed for evaluating the welfare benefits based on the Armadia Sen social welfare function in accordance with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework and add the two indicators as the forest cover,built-up area green coverage that reflect the ecological environment. The residents welfare index is 7181,forest welfare index is 4299 accounting for 59.86 percent of the residents welfare in Qingdao in 2007. The increasing of forest area can improve the welfare index. It go on peak when the forest coverage rate is between 60% to 70%. Too large forest can ruduce citizen welfare. The damage of forests will not only caused loss of the forestry itself but also damage other sectors of the economy then welfare index will decline. The proportion of tertiary industry,proportion of non-productive benefits of investment in fixed assets have a close positive correlation to welfare index. The government play a important role to improve welfare of the residents.It can not simply think that the general welfare of the residents will come down after taxes collection because it depends on the construction of urban forest. The existing system of compensation for forest ecological benefits can improve citizen welfare. Full compensation for the ecological benefits need some social and natural conditions in which technological innovation improve the investment ratio so forestry and other industries achieve rapid develop then it can improve citizen welfare.. Tenures system's effect depend on the amount of transaction costs after tenure distinct and increase level of income. The forest costs Internalization by tenure system reform can improve the welfare of the residents.This dissertation establish housing price model,urban forest-benefit CGE model,bring the welfare index of urban residents, making ecological capital into economic system. It is the first time that welfare benefit of the urban forest be researched comprehensively and take the advice that urban forests must be developed appropriately. They are theory and method innovation .However,this dissertation have some inadequacies still such as the errors of three-sector model and no evaluation all cost- benefits of forests etc. The direction of future research include comprehensive urban forest policy simulation,the measures of urban forest sustainable management, urban forest planning in favor of residents willing.