ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1578780
Horizontal ecological compensation Zoning and standard in China's major grain-producing areas based on virtual cultivated land flow
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hebei University of Economics and Business, Shijiazhuang, China
- 2North China Engineering Investigation Institute Co.,LTD. shijiazhuang, China, Shijiazhuang, China
- 3Shijiazhuang Dongnan Experimental Middle School, Shijiazhuang, China
- 4Hebei Cartographic Institute, Shijiazhuang, China
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China's main grain-producing areas (MGPA) have made outstanding contributions to cultivated land protection and food security. Integrating cultivated land use with socio-economic activities and constructing a horizontal ecological compensation mechanism under the virtual cultivated land (VCL) framework are important measures for achieving the "Trinity Comprehensive Protection" of quantity, quality, and ecology cultivated land. We used the North China Plain (NCP) as the research area and the multiregional input-output model to analyze inter-regional VCL flow, and the ecological compensation standard and compensation amount were calculated based on the ecosystem services value. (1) VCL flowed from economically underdeveloped regions (e.g., Hebei, Shandong, and Henan) to economically developed regions (e.g., Beijing and Tianjin). As a net outflow region, the NCP provided VCL for the Yangtze River and Pearl River deltas (2) The compensation standards ranged from 2192-18406 yuan/hectare. Net inflow regions were payment areas, and net outflow regions were receiving areas. Beijing and Tianjin should pay 3.04 and 0.70 billion yuan for other provinces. The NCP should obtain 17.35 billion yuan from other regions in China. The research framework provides a basis for division of responsibility for cultivated land protection and offers ideas and frameworks for horizontal ecological compensation of cultivated land.
Keywords: Virtual cultivated land, horizontal ecological compensation, major grain producing area, North China Plain, compensation Zoning and standard
Received: 06 Mar 2025; Accepted: 25 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Yang, Du, Liang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shan Yang, North China Engineering Investigation Institute Co.,LTD. shijiazhuang, China, Shijiazhuang, China
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