Improvement of Water Quality Assessment in Payments for Ecosystem Services: Evidence from Xin'anjiang River Basin

Zhang, H.; Wu, S.; Gu, D., and Tian, Y., 2020. Improvement of water quality assessment in payments for ecosystem services: Evidence from Xin'anjiang River Basin. In: Qiu, Y.; Zhu, H., and Fang, X. (eds.), Current Advancements in Marine and Coastal Research for Technological and Sociological Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 107, pp. 383-387. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is one of the important indexes to assess the pollution of water. The Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme implemented in Xin'anjiang River Basin took total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N) into assessment, while the index COD was ignored in the evaluation index system. It is necessary to figure out whether the indexes that put into the assessment were reasonable, especially if the indexes did not take into consideration were getting worse. Taking the Xin'anjiang River basin as a case, Synthetic Control Method (SCM) was used to analyze the effects of the PES scheme implemented in Anhui Province from 2012 on NH₃-N and COD. The results showed that the PES scheme success to alleviate the pollution of NH₃-N in Anhui Province, but failed to alleviate the pollution of COD at the same time. The study demonstrates whether the water quality has been improved since the PES scheme according to the indexes it was regulated, as well as COD, which did not take into consideration. Finally, the reasons for the increase of COD in Anhui Province have been analyzed, and suggestions have been offered from the perspective of improving the assessment of water quality.