Impact evaluation of a payments for ecosystem services program on vegetation quantity and quality restoration in Inner Mongolia.
J Environ Manage
; 303: 114113, 2022 Feb 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34815155
ABSTRACT
Globally, the payments for ecosystem services (PES) program has become a helpful tool that serves the purpose of mitigating ecosystem degradation and protecting ecosystem services. However, the ecological effects of existing PES programs based on counterfactual baselines, quantification and sophisticated statistical analyses are still poorly understood. Taking Inner Mongolia as an example, this study evaluated the ecological effectiveness of the Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP) using the matching approach. The findings are as follows. First, 49.8% and 41.5% of the townships had significant gains in vegetation quantity and quality between 2000 and 2015, respectively; while 9.5% and 13.7% of the townships had significant losses in vegetation quantity and quality, respectively. Second, for forest quantity recovered townships, comparing to the NFCP unenrolled townships, the enrolled townships had increased forest quantity by additional 0.377 million ha (5.2%) from 2000 to 2015. Third, for forest quality recovered townships, the enrolled townships on average additionally increased forest quality by 465.513 Gg carbon (3.6%) from 2000 to 2015. Our study helps to promote sophisticated impact evaluation of conservation policies, which would improve the understanding and management of conservation practices in China and abroad.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Ecosystem
/
Conservation of Natural Resources
Type of study:
Evaluation_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
En
Journal:
J Environ Manage
Year:
2022
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
China