Water ecological compensation standards for the Yellow River Basin from coordinated provider-beneficiary perspectives

The Yellow River Basin underwent rapid urbanization within the Anthropocene, necessitating a horizontal ecological compensation model, which we define as a province-to-province accounting/settlement framework used to produce scenario allocations rather than to describe an enacted program, to foster regional coordination. This study emphasized the connections between water resource utilization and economic compensation among provinces. We developed a region-specific model for calculating compensation standards that integrates ecosystem service values with the ecological footprint of water use, while factoring in each province's fiscal capacity. The findings indicated that in 2020, Qinghai Province exhibited the highest ecosystem-service worth across the Yellow River Basin, while Shandong Province recorded the lowest. Despite significant ecological surpluses in Qinghai and Sichuan, the entire basin faced an ecological deficit, highlighting the unsustainable utilization of water resources by other provinces. Theoretically, provinces situated in the middle and downstream segments of the basin should reimburse upstream areas for safeguarding water resources and offsetting the positive externalities of ecosystem services. Provinces within the compensation region included Gansu (0.47 %), Ningxia (0.51 %), Inner Mongolia (4.33 %), Shaanxi (2.85 %), Shanxi (7.81 %), Henan (30.52 %), and Shandong (53.46 %). This study contributed to the paramount theme of sustainable urban resource and environmental management within Earth system boundaries by delving into the intricate interdependencies of social, ecological, and technological dimensions, advancing a profound understanding of systemic urban sustainable transformations.