Study on Influencing Factors and Simulation of Watershed Ecological Compensation Based on Evolutionary Game

Quanxi Wang, Ni Wang, Haodong Wang and Yuan Xiu
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Quanxi Wang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, No. 5 South Jinhua Road, Xi’an 710048, China
Ni Wang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, No. 5 South Jinhua Road, Xi’an 710048, China
Haodong Wang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, No. 5 South Jinhua Road, Xi’an 710048, China
Yuan Xiu: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, No. 5 South Jinhua Road, Xi’an 710048, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-23

Abstract: In the practice of watershed ecological compensation, due to the inconsistency between the interests of economic development and the objectives of ecological protection, there are typical game characteristics among the relevant stakeholders. Taking the ecological compensation between Henan and Shaanxi in the Yellow River Basin as an example, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model, obtains the external conditions for various stakeholders to achieve stable cooperation from the perspective of the government, and demonstrates the necessity of combining vertical and horizontal ecological compensation. The sensitivity of each party’s decision making to key elements is analyzed through a simulation. The results show that: (1) the optimal strategy is mainly affected by the initial willingness of the upstream government and the central government; the strong regulatory power of the central government can eliminate the influence of the initial will; (2) development opportunity costs and vertical fiscal transfer payments have the most obvious influence on upstream government decision-making; (3) the effect on optimal decision state of downstream paying upstream ecological compensation is higher than that of upstream paying downstream ecological compensation; (4) the punishment of the central government should ensure the binding force on the lower governments, and the revenue and expenditure under its supervision strategy should ensure the effectiveness of the supervision public power. The above conclusions provide support for improving the ecological compensation mechanism of transboundary basins.

Keywords: ecological compensation for transboundary basins; evolutionary game theory; Yellow River Basin of Shaanxi Province; stakeholder; simulation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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