Residents’ willingness to pay for ecosystem services and its influencing factors: A study of the Xin’an River basin

Eco-compensation is a type of institutional arrangement that plays a key role in maintaining ecosystem service functions. Thus, to solve the issues regarding ecological environmental protection in the Xin’an River basin (XARB), the eco-compensation project of the XARB has been implemented since 2012. However, as direct participants in the eco-compensation project, local residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for eco-compensation directly affects ecological safety and sustainable development in the XARB. Therefore, this study primarily explores residents’ WTP and its influencing factors, thereby measuring the ecosystem service function value in the XARB. A total of 2217 randomly selected local residents participated in a face-to-face questionnaire-based survey. Based on field research data, this study employed the contingent valuation method and Tobit model to analyze residents’ WTP and the factors affecting it in the XARB. The results suggest that 84.21% of residents intended to pay. Residents’ WTP in the whole XARB, Huangshan city, Xuancheng city, and Hangzhou city were 20.04, 20.60, 13.14, and 22.48 USD per year, respectively, showing significant spatial heterogeneity. The ecosystem service function value in the XARB was 52.72 million USD. Crucial factors influencing WTP were government employees, individual households, and government staff as family members. Thus, it is necessary to create a diversified river basin eco-compensation mechanism to formulate an eco-compensation standard for different areas.