Analysis of Ecological Compensation Effects in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region: Focusing on Water Resource Compensation

Abstract

In promoting regional coordinated development, ecological compensation has become a key means to achieve sustainable development goals. This study takes the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as the research object and introduces a novel ecological compensation method - the emergy-based ecological footprint analysis method - to calculate the ecological compensation amount from 2000 to 2022. This method reflects the accuracy of sustainable development levels and overcomes the limitations of previous methods. By collecting and analyzing data on ecological compensation practices in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, it was found that the region's ecological compensation practices are currently mainly centered around water resources ecological compensation. By comparing the theoretical ecological compensation amount with the actual payment of the river basin ecological compensation amount, the study evaluated the effectiveness of ecological compensation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and identified the main problems with the current ecological compensation mechanism: the significant disparity between theoretical compensation and actual payments, the overly singular compensation model, the inconsistency in compensation standards, and the inadequacy of the legal framework. The results show that although the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has made some progress in river basin ecological compensation, the compensation mechanism still needs to be optimized to improve its effectiveness. This study provides scientific evidence for improving the ecological compensation mechanism in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and serves as a reference for ecological compensation practices in other regions.