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Valuation of lake and marsh wetlands ecosystem services in China

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Abstract

Wetlands are highly productive natural ecosystems, providing valuable goods and services. There is growing interest in transferring ecosystem service value from the existing wetlands studied to other wetlands ecosystems at a large geographic scale. The benefit transfer method uses the known values from wetlands to predict the value of other wetland sites. This methodology requires only limited time and resources. The present study calculated the value of the ecological services provided by lake and marsh wetlands in China in terms of biodiversity indices, water quality indices and economic indices. Basic data on wetlands were obtained through remote sensing images. The results show that: 1) The total ecosystem service value of the lake and marsh wetlands in 2008 was calculated to be 8.1841 × 1010 United States Dollars (USD), with the marsh and lake wetlands contributing 5.6329 × 1010 and 2.5512 × 1010 USD, respectively. Values of marsh ecosystem service were concentrated in Heilongjiang Province (2.5516 × 1010 USD), Qinghai Province (1.2014 × 1010 USD), and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (1.1884 × 1010 USD). The value of the lakes were concentrated in Tibet Autonomous Region (6.223 × 109 USD), Heilongjiang (5.810 × 109 USD), and Qinghai (5.500 × 109 USD). 2) Waste treatment and climate regulation services contributed to 26.29% and 24.74% respectively, of the total ecosystem service value of the marsh wetlands. Hydrological regulation and waste treatment contributed to 41.39% and 32.75%, respectively, of the total ecosystem service value of the lake wetlands. 3) The total ecological service value of the lake and marsh wetlands was 54.64% of the total service value of natural grassland ecosystems and 30.34% of the total service value of forests ecosystems in China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Base of the State Key Laboratory of Urban Environmental Processes and Digital Modeling, Beijing, 100048, China

    Yiran Zhang, Demin Zhou & Fengjiao Xu

  2. College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Yiran Zhang, Demin Zhou & Fengjiao Xu

  3. Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhenguo Niu

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  1. Yiran Zhang
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Correspondence to Demin Zhou.

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Foundation item: Under the auspices of Forestry Public Interest Research Program (No. 201204201), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41171415)

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Zhang, Y., Zhou, D., Niu, Z. et al. Valuation of lake and marsh wetlands ecosystem services in China. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 24, 269–278 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-013-0648-z

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