Ecosystem Services Of Chongyi Hakka Rice Terrace And It's Sustainable Management In Jiangxi Province

Chongyi Hakka Terraces locate in the south of Jiangxi province, and provide many ecosystem services for the Hakka people. Economic valuation on the main ecosystem services of Chongyi Hakka Terraces can help to understand the direct contribution which the terrace system carry out to Hakka society, and make the government consider completely the importance of protecting the terrace ecosystem when considering the strategy of economic.An economic evaluation of the main ecosystem services of Chongyi Hakka Terraces can help to demonstrate the contributions of the terrace system to Hakka society, on the basis of which the protection of Hakka Terrace system could be undertaken by the local government. In view of the social and economic characteristics of Chongyi Hakka Terrace ecosystem and its location, an index system was established to evaluate the servicefunction, and a qualitative analysis was conducted for these functions mechanism and their importance. Besides, based on the data collected in 2014, with a combination of physical quality and economic value, a quantitative analysis was carried out of its nine service indicators. The findings were as follows: firstly, among the nine evaluation indicators, the physical quality and the economic value of soil conservation both ranked the highest, the former being 76457 kg·hm-2 and the latter 106743 yuan·hm-2, accounting respectively for 71.6% and 30.3% of the total mass and total value of the Hakka Terrace ecosystem.Secondly, the unique service functions of Hakka Terrace ecosystem could be embodied in its cultural heritage and landscape, the corresponding economic values reaching up to 100000 yuan·hm-2 and 46333 yuan·hm-2 respectively, ranking the second and third highest among the nine indicators. Thirdly, the agricultural products from the Hakka Terrace were vital welfare for the local residents, but their physical quality and the economic value only accounted for 6.8% and 10.2% of its total mass and total value respectively. As a result, the service functions of the Hakka Terrace ecosystem would be dramatically undervalued with respect to agricultural products only. However, these economic figures could reveal the huge contributions which the Hakka Terrace ecosystem had made to the society in which they could not only raise awareness of the necessity to preserve the agricultural heritage by the administrators and the public but also provide efficient data support for the government when making ecological compensation criteria for the Hakka Terrace system.The paper established the evaluation indexes system of the ecosystem services function in Chongyi Hakka Terraces, according to its ecological and social economic characteristics. Then, evaluated the eco-economic values provided by two major ecosystem (field and forest) in the Chongyi Hakka Terraces in 2012 with the methods of replacement cost, market value, shadow engineering, cost of afforestation,the reference results and travel expenses,etc.. The results show that:Firstly, the total economic values of the ecosystem services provided by Chongyi Hakka Terraces was estimated to be 269×108 yuan in 2012, among which the values of farmland ecosystem service and forest ecosystem service were 42.10×108 and 226.87×108 yuan, accounting for 15.60% and 84.08% of the total value, respectively.Secondly, the values of soil conservation, wildlife habitats and tourism leisure were the top three among the 12 final ecosystem services evaluated, which were 194.51×108 yuan,30.93×108 yuan and 22.42×108 yuan,accounting for 72.89%,11.46% and 21.89% of the total value, respectively. At last, The economic values of the 12 ecosystem service indexes were sorted as soil conservation, biological diversity protection, tourism leisure, product production, gas regulation, climate regulation, Environmental purification, Flood regulation and storage, pest control,social security, scientific research and cultural transmission according to the value of the evaluation. The direct economic figures revealed the great contribution Chongyi Hakka Terraces do to our society. It is not only helpful to improve the consciousness of the management and the public to protect the traditional agricultural culture, but also provide the data support for the government to formulate the compensation standard for the Hakka terrace area.The obstacle factors, potential and effect on sustainable development of Chongyi Hakka terrace rice ecosystem were analyzed,with the method of comprehensive weighting function model, coordination degree model and model of obstacle degree on development. The results show that the comprehensive indexes of the ecological sustainable development of Chongyi Hakka terrace system increased by 2.22 times in 1990 to 2014; the process of sustainable development can be divided into the rapid development stage, Undulating development stage and development stage of slowdowns, in the stage of rapid development, the average annual growth rate of the comprehensive index of sustainable development was 9.52%. The coordination degree among the indexes were greater than 0.65, and the ability of these indexes developed with each coordinately was very well. The sustainable development of the Hakka rice terrace system had great potential. There were four monomial obstacles such as service industry output factor, farmer education, the Engel coefficient and the rate of farmland had great Influence on the ecological sustainable development of Chongyi Hakka terrace rice system, their obstacle degree values were 0.1747, 0.1681, 0.1508 and 0.1290 respectively.Based on the externality of ecological economic benefit of Hakka rice terraces system, the framework of ecological compensation mechanism was established. By using the ecosystem service value method, the ecological compensation standard of Hakka rice terrace system was calculated as 6768 yuan·hm-2. Ecological compensation priority according to the terraced rice terraces of Hakka abandoned area calculation system was Qiyunshan village, Xindi village, Oujia village,Xiaokeng village, Changjiang village, Jiuling village, Junyuan village, Zhuxi village,Nuanshui village, Shangbao village, Jiazi village, Meikeng village, Chishui village and Shuinan village.