Qichuan Wetland Ecosystem Service Value Assessment

Wetalnd ecosystem not only provides animal and plant products and fresh water, but also has great ecological regulation functionand environmental benefit. The wetlands in China, especially the lake wetlands, are faced with great challenges, and the degradation of wetland can not be ignored. Ecosytem services valuation can provide evidence for the trade-off between ecosystem protection and development plan, which becomes the significant basis of relative work, like protection financing. This paper takes Hechuan Wetland as the study area, to value ecosystem services, and present policy suggestion. Hechuan wetland, located at the mid-Yellow River and the intersection of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan province, is the largest hot spring lake type wetland in the Yellow River basin. Hechuan is the birthplace of Guanju, a famous poem in the Book of Songs. With the increasing proportion of constructed wetland in Hechuan Wetalnd, the crude ecosystem has been suffering from some damage. It is the premise of protection and rational utilization of Hechuan Wetland to establish a correct understanding of the ecosystem services value. This paper reorganizes and conclude the related concepts of ecosystem services, ecosystem services value and valuation methods, to provide basis for Hechuan Wetland ecosystem services valuation. And based on the field trip and questionnaire survey, this paper values Hechuan wetland ecosystem services, considering use value and non-use value. The use value is estimated corresponding to ten ecosystem services, and the non-use value is estimated by contingent valuation method (CVM). Moreover, the paper discusses how the historical and cultural value of Book of Songs affects the willingness to pay by setting a control group. It concludes that the annual use value of Hechuan wetland ecosystem services is 80.234 billion Yuan and the annual non-use value is 6.268 billion Yuan. As to the use values, the rank of values from largest to the smallest is:climate regulation, water storage and retention, flood water detention, habitat, material production, waste treatment, soil conservation, recreation, cultural use, gas regulation. Hechuan Wetland is of great influence in climate regulation, water storage and flood water detention in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. What's more, the study suggests that the willingness to pay in the survey shows significant difference according to the awareness of the fact that Hechuan is the birthplace of Guanju.