Payment for Enviromental Services Based on Three Environmental Evaluation methods in Miyun Reservoir River Basin, Beijing, China

摘要

Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has been widely adopted as a solution to compensate upstream water users for providing clean water. However, the size of payments is critical to the success of PES, and the problems of determining the correct price is often critical to the implementation of PES policies. We demonstrate three independent valuation methods to determine the price of the ecosystem service (ES) of water quality in the Miyun Reservoir, the main surface water source for Beijing. The three using valuation methods are: i) Water Resources Benefits Assessment (WRBA), ii) Contingent valuation method (CVM), and opportunity cost of limitation of development rights (OCLDR). We found the value of water quality is lowest using OCLDR, highest with CVM, and the WRBA in-between. We propose OCLDR is used to determine compensation to upstream; WRBA for pricing water transfer; and CVM for payments integrated water quality improvement.