Realizing Benefit Sharing through Reasonable Land Compensation in the Sustainable Development of Water Resources: Two Case Studies in China

Haibing Sun (), Xuan Li, Yuefang Duan and Ningjing Zhang
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Haibing Sun: Research Centre for Reservoir Resettlement, China Three Gorge University, Yichang 443002, China
Xuan Li: School of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Yuefang Duan: Research Centre for Reservoir Resettlement, China Three Gorge University, Yichang 443002, China
Ningjing Zhang: School of Economics and Management, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: The existence of benefit distribution unfairness may lead to problems such as resettlement conflicts, which have become the bottleneck of sustainable development of water resources in many countries. Exploring and establishing equitable benefit sharing systems are the resolving approach, but there is still the lack of quantitative analysis tools for benefit distribution. From the perspective of benefit sharing, this study designs specific quantitative methods to determine land compensation prices that migrants deserve and makes a case analysis of two projects in China. Results suggest the following: (1) Fair compensation calculated by the input dividend method is the product of the proportion of agricultural land investment and the net income of the project, while the value summation method takes the sum of the agricultural land value, social security value and average value-added distribution as the compensation price. (2) The cases demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methods. (3) Current policy compensation is lower than the calculated compensation, and there are insufficient migrants participating in benefit sharing in China. By referring to the estimated value of the two methods, governments or development enterprises can reasonably improve the compensation standard or provide additional follow-up support to increase the welfare of migrants, which is expected to achieve a relatively balanced allocation of benefits and realize a win-win situation.

Keywords: resettlement of migrants; water conservancy and hydropower project; benefit sharing; equitable compensation; calculation method; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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