Understanding public preferences and evaluating the river basin are essential for effective river basin management, and enhancing its environmental attributes can provide considerable non-market benefits. As such, the study explores the heterogeneity in people's preferences and rankings of river ecosystem services based on their willingness to pay (WTP) to upgrade these services. A research survey was conducted throughout the river basin using a choice experiment approach. In this study, we evaluated the impact of study area elevation (a spatial attribute) on residents' willingness to pay for rehabilitation of environmental attributes. The study incorporates 6 ecological attributes in order to examine the differences in people's willingness to pay at various elevation levels. A total of five cities and 33 surrounding villages and townships were surveyed, while five elevation groups were made on an ad hoc basis to split samples, i.e., 1000-1600 m, ≤1600-2200 m, ≤2200-2800 m, > 2800-3400 m, and 3400-4000 m. The results of the mixed logit model recognized that people living at different elevations value rehabilitation of varying environmental attributes differently. For example, the inhabitants in Group 1 (1000-1600 mm) are willing to pay RMB 6.70 per year for biodiversity upgrades; while the WTP of the people for the same attributes is RMB 32.68 in Group 5 (3400-4000 mm). The Krinsky Robb approach confirmed that agricultural product quality and greenhouse gases (GHGs) were the most highly valued attributes, with a willingness to pay of RMB 90.40 and RMB 47.17, respectively. Applying these results as a reference for sustainable improvements and uplift of deteriorated ecological qualities is an example of how they may be helpful in bettering the world.
Keywords: Choice modeling; Ecosystem services; Elevation; Heihe river basin; Preference heterogeneity; Valuation.
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