Study on Distribution of Tuojiang River Basin Gross Ecosystem Product by Value Accounting System Combined with Material Flow Analysis

PurposeTo investigate the changes of gross ecosystem product (GEP) in Tuojiang River Basin from 2018 to 2019, providing insight into design of the ecological compensation mechanism.

MethodsGEP accounting system combined with material flow analysis was used to implement GEP allocation for river basin affiliated cities, and reveal its temporal variation.

Results1) The GEP of Tuojiang River Basin from 2018 and 2019 was 412.021 billion yuan and 447.767 billion yuan, respectively, in which climate regulation service value and cultural service value contributed the most, their cumulative contribution was 246.899 billion yuan and 272.114 billion yuan from 2018 to 2019, accounting for 59.9% and 60.8%, respectively. 2) The GEP of Chengdu was the largest in the basin, with 148.487 billion yuan and 158.917 billion yuan in 2018 and 2019, respectively, whilst the GEP in Luzhou was the smallest, with 15.059 billion yuan and 16.848 billion yuan, respectively. However, the GEP increase regarding Luzhou was the highest, reaching 11.9%. 3) Neijiang exported the most (42.768 billion yuan) GEP to the basin in 2018, but it decreased to 9.976 billion yuan in 2019. Chengdu had the largest increase in its GEP supply, from 19.215 billion yuan in 2018 to 32.949 billion yuan in 2019. Luzhou had changed from GEP supply to GEP consumption, from 7.493 billion yuan in 2018 reducing to −0.495 billion yuan in 2019, from the indemnified subject to the compensation subject.

ConclusionDue to the supply and demand relationship between upstream and downstream in the river basin, GEP shows the characteristics of value flow, and its associated changes are mainly affected by ecological flow, policy incentives and industrial structure adjustment.