Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2011, Vol. 66 ›› Issue (4): 562-575.doi: 10.11821/xb201104012

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Assessing Non-market Value of Cultivated Land in Ecologically Fragile Areas of Three Gorges Reservoir

LI Guangdong, QIU Daochi, WANG Ping   

  1. School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
  • Received:2010-07-19 Revised:2010-12-20 Online:2011-04-20 Published:2011-04-20
  • Supported by:

    National Social Science Foundation of China, No.07XJY014

Abstract: Economic compensation is an effective way to break the external benefits spillover of cultivated land protection which is mainly composed of non-market value of cultivated land, so it is of great reference value for reasonably fixing the economic compensation criterion in cultivated land protection. In this paper, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is used to evaluate the non-market value of cultivated land in ecologically fragile areas of the Three Gorges Reservoir according to 712 valid questionnaires. Several conclusions can be drawn as follows. (1) The cognition of different residents about the significance of protection cultivated land and the non-market value of cultivated land is in varying degrees, which is decided by how the economic, cultural, social, governmental, psychological and other factors act on the residents dwelling in ecologically fragile poverty-stricken areas. (2) The farmers’willingness rate to pay for the non-market value of cultivated land reaches 76.77% , while that of urban residents accounted for only 64.87%. Such a phenomenon results from the cognition that respondents would rather combine their own interests with cultivated land value, than pay great attention to the protection of cultivated land. (3) Through Probit Regression and Logit Regression analysis, it is also shown that economic and social characteristic of respondents plays an important role in their decision of whether to pay for the cultivated land protection, and income level is the dominant factor in farmers' decision, but that of urban residents is rooted in their awareness of the importance of cultivated land protection and their donor history. (4) Willingness to pay (WTP) of farmers and urban residents are 157.92 yuan/(household·a) and 206.28 yuan/ household·a) respectively. Respondents' WTP for the non-market value of per hectare cultivated land reaches 607.65 yuan/(hm2·a) and the overall non-market value of cultivated land reaches up to 104.26×108 yuan in ecological fragility of the Three Gorges Reservoir area.

Key words: cultivated land protection, non-market value, economic compensation, contingent valuation method, Probit model, Logit model, Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Chongqing