Regional ecological compensation accounting in Fuzhou City based on a payment for ecosystem services (PES)model

The determination of regional ecological compensation quota and spatial selection are key issues in the study of horizontal transfer payment ecological compensation mechanism. Taking 12 districts of Fuzhou City as the basic research unit, we accounted the ecological function values of forest, grassland, wetland, agriculture, and marine ecosystems in 2015 and 2018. Combined with local economic development situation, we constructed an ecological compensation model. With this model, we determined the ecological compensation quota and spatial distribution of different ecosystems in various districts and counties of Fuzhou. The results showed that from 2015 to 2018, Gulou District had the largest ecological payment, with 36.384 billion yuan, followed by Mawei, Cangshan and Jin'an districts, with 7.809, 6.974 and 6.669 billion yuan, respectively. Luoyuan County and Taijiang District had lower payment, which were 2.942 and 1.903 billion yuan respectively. Among the areas requiring ecological compensation, Lianjiang County and Changle District had high compensation quotas, being 25.120 and 20.261 billion yuan, followed by Yongtai County (12.570 billion yuan). The compensation amounts in Minhou County, Fuqing City and Minqing County were less than 10 billion yuan. The distribution of ecological compensation differed across various ecosystems. In general, the main ecological compensation areas of forest, grassland, wetland and agriculture ecosystem were in Yongtai, Minqing, Minhou, Lianjiang and Luoyuan counties. The compensation amounts were 2.424-31.379 billion yuan in forest, 1.181-20.708 billion yuan in grassland, 1.015-45.493 billion yuan in wetland, and 5.780-23.954 billion yuan in cropland. The main regions that need compensation for marine ecosystem were Lianjiang County, Changle District, and Fuqing City, with the amount of compensation being 8.216-47.854 billion yuan. The results could properly reflect the coordinated development of regional ecological and economic conditions, which could provide a reference for the improvement of the ecological compensation mechanism in Fuzhou City.