Urban forest ecosystem service value assessment under carbon reduction: A case study of Yanbian, China

Urban forests play an important role in carbon emission reduction by sequestering carbon and regulating urban ecological processes, while also providing a broader bundle of ecosystem services that support regional sustainability. Ecological compensation is a key policy instrument for translating these ecosystem services into realizable economic value. However, there is still a research gap in establishing an effective correlation between policy performance and the monetary accounting of ecological value, hindering the assessment of whether compensation standards truly reflect ecological worth-a challenge particularly acute in developing regions. To address this, this study develops an integrated performance-accounting evaluation framework applied to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, China. First, ecological compensation performance from 2015 to 2020 is evaluated using the Pressure-State-Effect-Response (PSER) model combined with the entropy-weight TOPSIS method. Second, a three-level environmental restoration cost method is used to quantify and monetize the benchmark level of ecosystem service value that compensation should ideally reflect. The results demonstrate that while the forest ecosystem service value reached 24,180.18 million yuan, the compensation performance remained constrained by insufficient economic feedback mechanisms. This discrepancy suggests that current compensation standards significantly underestimate local opportunity costs and the intrinsic value of carbon-related services. This research provides a robust, transferable framework for optimizing ecological compensation design in developing regions, ensuring that fiscal inputs are scientifically aligned with the real value of urban forest ecosystems in the context of global carbon reduction.