Determinants of Farmers’ Willingness to Pay and Its Level for Ecological Compensation of Poyang Lake Wetland, China: A Household-Level Survey

Abstract

This study examines the determinants of farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) and their payment levels for ecological compensation of the Poyang Lake Wetland in China. We developed a farmer household survey and gathered 292 effective responses. The contingent valuation method (CVM) and Heckman's two-step model were employed for the empirical study. Results show that 46.58% of farmers are willing to pay ecological compensation, with an average price of $64.39/household per year. The influencing factors that significantly influence farmers' WTP include household income, residential location, emphasis on improvement of wetland resources, arable land area, and contracted water area. In addition, household income, residential location, arable land area, and contracted water area are significantly related to their payment levels. The results of this empirical study inform important policy implications and recommendations.

Factors Influencing Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Wetland Restoration: Evidence from China

“…Unlike Zhang et al [20] and Kong et al [21], we find that net household income (Net income) is negatively associated with farmers' participation in wetland restoration in China. The coefficient is negative and statistically significant at the 5% level.…”

“…In contrast to the rich literature discussed above, there has been little attention on China's wetland restoration programs except by Zhang et al [20] and Kong et al [21]. Zhang et al [20] examined factors affecting farmers' participation in the conversion of cultivated land to wetlands in the Sanjiang National Nature Reserve.…”

How Willing Are Herders to Participate in Carbon Sequestration and Mitigation? An Inner Mongolian Grassland Case

“…Unlike some studies in other areas, such as forest, farmland, and wetland, the results of this study showed that 83% of the 404 herdsman households that were surveyed in this area were in the state of no understanding for grassland carbon sequestration and mitigation, and only 17% were in the state of understanding, implying a considerably lower cognitive level [6,21,22]. Hong found that peasant households who had previously participated in carbon sink projects had a significantly improved cognition level than those that did not participate in these projects [23].…”

“…This may be mainly due to the fact there are a large number of herders (83% of 404) with low cognition in the research area. Unlike Zhu et al [22] but similar to Kong et al [21], we find that the number of family members and the corresponding trainings and guidance have no significant effect on herders' willingness to participate. This finding may be explained by the fact that local carbon sequestration and mitigation policies are easy to be adopted.…”

“…Internal influencing factors referred to individual characteristics of the participants, such as the age of family members, their education degree, their knowledge and experience about carbon sequestration and mitigation, the number of labor force, and the financial income of the family [14,18,19]. For example, higher participation willingness was found in families with generally younger members than those with aging members, and in families with high financial income than those with poor financial income [20][21][22]. The family financial income is considered to be a key factor to participation willingness [17].…”