Ranking of ecosystem services on the basis of willingness to pay: Monetary assessment of a subset of ecosystem services in the Heihe River basin

The identification of public preferences and the welfares of river system evaluation are consequential for effective renovation of river system as well as viable river management. For this reason, the focus of current study was emphasized on respondent's willingness to pay through implementation of Random Parameter Logit model using data collected through choice experiment technique, in which the preferences of sampled respondent's in urban, rural and pooled data was evaluated for different abiotic and biotic ecosystem services across the entire Heihe River Basin. The estimated results revealed that average urban households are willing to pay more for the restoration of ecosystem services compared to rural residents. In abiotic ecosystem services, the maximum willingness to pay in all three geographical splitted regions was recorded for river water quality, while lowest was recorded for Lake Area in urban and pooled data and for Leisure and entertainment in rural area. Similarly, for biotic ecosystem services, the maximum willingness to pay was recorded for Greenhouse gases effect in urban and for Agricultural product quality in rural and pooled data while lowest was recorded for Oasis in all three regions. The study also recommends that the government of China should act appropriately to make improvements in level of water quality and restoration of ecosystem services. Similarly, water should be made available to the consumers in its best possible state. Furthermore, in case of any disorder in water quality in some regions, inhabitants need to be informed on time. Moreover, to fulfil the requirements for water, water programs and policies should be planned on the basis of demand. While making any policy there should be diverse actions, keeping in view the residents of urban and rural areas as the results approved the heterogeneity in their preferences. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.