The effects of China's Ecological Control Line policy on ecosystem services: The case of Wuhan City

Abstract

To address the pressure of the ecological degradation, an ‘Ecological Control Line’ (ECL) policy has been implemented in China since 2005. This paper aims to examine the effects of ECL and its supporting policies on maintaining ecosystem services within the context of Chinese high-speed economic growth and rapid urbanization. The paper is a product of previous research into the valuation of ecosystem services in monetary units and discusses a method of translation from the unit area value of China's ecosystem service value (ESV) to Wuhan City by the adjustment of the functional coefficient and economic coefficient. The evaluation of the effects of the ECL policy on ESV is divided into two time-periods. One is from 2009 to 2011 before the implementation of the supporting policies, and the other is from 2012 to 2014 after the implementation of the supporting policies. The total ESV within the Wuhan ECL area dropped by 1.54% from 2009 to 2011 and then increased quickly by 38.71% from 2012 to 2014, coinciding with the application of ECL supporting policies during 2012–2014.