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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Geoscience and Society
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1447513
This article is part of the Research Topic Gross Ecosystem Product: Valuation of Nature’s Contribution to Human Well-Being View all 4 articles
Payments for forest ecosystem services in China: multi-function quantitative Ecological compensation standard based on Human Development Index
Provisionally accepted- Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
Forest ecosystems provide many ecosystem services, and payment for these ecosystem services has recently become a policy-relevant issue. This paper puts forward multi-function quantitative standard (MQECS) for forest ecosystem services based on the Human Development Index and the 6 distinct forest ecosystem services values. Using the MQECS method, the MQECSi and total ecological compensation amount (TECAi) for forest ecosystem services in Guangdong and Liaoning provinces in 2012 were calculated.The MQECSi of Guangdong and Liaoning were 663.02 and 225.27 RMB•hm -2 , and the TECAi of these provinces were 66.82×10 8 and 13.67×10 8 RMB. The MQECSi of Guangdong is about three times that of Liaoning, and the government needs to increase investment per unit forest area by 176.25% and 50.20% of the current compensation amount in Guangdong and Liaoning, to achieve the target quantitative compensation standards. Additionally, the MQECS method was also applied to calculate the ecological compensation for forest ecosystem services of different cities in Guangdong and Liaoning. The MQECS method not only considers the local government's ability to pay but also incorporates factors influencing human well-being and the valuation of distinct forest ecosystem services. It is suitable for application to the current forest management in China.
Keywords: Forest ecosystem services, multi-function quantitative ecological compensation, Human Development Index, sustainanility, Human well being
Received: 11 Jun 2024; Accepted: 10 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Niu, XU and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiang Niu, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
Bing Wang, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
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