Evolutionary Game Analysis of Inter-provincial Diversified Ecological Compensation Collaborative Governance

Abstract

Establishing a diversified ecological compensation mechanism for inter-provincial river basins is an important measure to effectively balance the relationship between water quality protection and economic development. However, in the practice of diversified ecological compensation of river basin water ecology, the conflicts of interests and contradictions between upstream and downstream governments in water resources management and protection become an important obstacle to the sustainable development of the river basin. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes the operation mode of a diversified ecological compensation mechanism based on collaborative governance among local governments, to promote the diversified ecological compensation mechanism to effectively match the demands of interest subjects and dynamically adjust the combination of compensation methods. The evolutionary game model of diversified ecological compensation cooperative governance between upstream and downstream governments is constructed, the dynamic simulation analysis is carried out by taking Shaanxi and Henan provinces as examples. The results show that the higher the initial willingness of upstream governments to diversify ecological compensation, the faster the stability of the collaborative governance system. When the fund allocation ratio of the diversified compensation method is biased to the government compensation, the stable state of the system can be achieved faster. The agreement guarantee cost has a greater impact on the upstream government, and it is easier to achieve system stability when the revenue distribution ratio is biased toward the downstream government. A good incentive and constraint mechanism can effectively promote the the system’ stability and have a more significant impact on the downstream government.