Study on the ecological compensation standard for river basin water environment based on total pollutants control

Abstract The method used to calculate ecological compensation remains an important but difficult issue in current studies of ecological compensation. In this study, we used the ecological compensation method to examine the natural, social, and economic interactions between ecological and economic systems at the administrative level and between upstream and downstream areas in a river basin, with the aim of capacity control in the total amount of pollutants discharged. We used the information entropy method to build the total pollutant allocation model, in which we included a range of indexes that reflected regional heterogeneity in factors such as population, economic structure, production level, pollution control, and the water environment. The relationship between the capital invested and the quantity of pollutants discharged was used to calculate the unit value of the pollutants, from which we constructed a quantitative model of ecological compensation standard for river basin water environment based on total pollutants control. We used the Xiao Honghe River Basin, China, as a case study, and calculated the ecological compensation values of the water environment from 2008 to 2012 with chemical oxygen demand (COD) as the main pollution evaluation index. From the upper to lower reaches, the compensation value gradually decreased while it gradually increased in terms of time scale. This study provides a valid approach that can be applied to develop a long-term effective mechanism for protecting river basin ecology and improving the system of ecological compensation in river basins.