Theory and valuation of cross-regional ecological compensation for cultivated land: A case study of Shanxi province, China

It is the core to design a cross-regional ecological compensation standard of cultivated land for promoting its marketization. Unfortunately, there are some defects in the existing ecological compensation model of cultivated land. For its sustainability, this study established a theoretical model of cross-regional ecological compensation of cultivated land, focused on estimating its ecological compensation price and then analyzed the temporal and spatial changes of its ecological compensation amount in Shanxi province. We found that the model designed in our paper had a lot of credibility, and it could better identify the ecological payment and acceptance areas of cultivated land. Moreover, the ecological payment areas were generally distributed in the Fenhe valley and surrounding intermountain basins, while the ecological acceptance areas were mainly along with the Lvliang mountains and the surrounding hilly mountainous. It also noted that the cultivated land's compensation price showed an upward trend with time, and presented a five-region distribution of "three highs and two lows". Furthermore, the average compensation price in the non-demonstration was greater than that in demonstration counties of Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and the average compensation price in ecological payment areas was also greater than that in ecological acceptance areas. It would promote the ecological compensation marketization of cultivated land with the help of regional differences in ecological compensation prices. These findings are highly valuable for the government coordinating the relationship between agricultural production and cultivated land protection.