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Agricultural opportunity costs assessment based on planting suitability: a case study in a mountain county in southwest China

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Abstract

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has become an increasingly popular means of ecosystem conservation. Opportunity cost is an important factor to increase the investment efficiency of PES projects. However, the distribution of opportunity cost is usually unclear in mountainous regions due to the obvious environment changes. In this study, we developed a framework to assess the distribution of agricultural opportunity costs in mountainous regions and applied this method to Baoxing County, a typical mountainous county in Sichuan Province of southwest China. Planting suitability of 17 crops was assessed based on agricultural statistics and natural conditions data within a GIS environment. Agricultural opportunity cost was quantified with a weighted summation of farmers’ willingness to cultivate and each crop’s opportunity cost. Finally, specific agricultural opportunity cost was obtained according to the spatial areas of the protection programs and land use status. The results showed that agricultural opportunity costs of PES in Baoxing County were estimated to be more than $30 million, with a mean of 400.85 $/ha. Agricultural opportunity costs in mountainous regions displayed some obvious spatial variation and areas with lower agricultural opportunity costs could be selected as priority areas for PES. Our findings revealed that the planting suitability evaluation can make agricultural opportunity costs map** more reasonable. It will be helpful for the PES programs implementation in mountainous regions.

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Acknowledgements

Our work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41371539), Western Light Talent Culture Project: Standard of Payment for Ecosystem Service based on GIS and GEF (Global Environment Fund) Project: Payment for Watershed Services in the Chishui River Basin for the Conservation of Globally Significant Biodiversity (Grant Nos. 00089388). We would like to express our sincere thanks. The comments of reviewers and the editors of the journal to improve this manuscript are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Ju Liu, Bin Fu, Yu-kuan Wang, Ya-feng Lu & Pei Xu

  2. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Resources Use in Beibu Gulf (Guangxi Teachers Education University), Ministry of Education, Nanning, 530001, China

    Ju Liu

  3. Wanzhou Key Regional Ecology and Environment Monitoring Station, Chongqing, 404020, China

    Ju Liu, Bin Fu, Yu-kuan Wang, Ya-feng Lu & Pei Xu

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  1. Ju Liu
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Correspondence to Pei Xu.

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Liu, J., Fu, B., Wang, Yk. et al. Agricultural opportunity costs assessment based on planting suitability: a case study in a mountain county in southwest China. J. Mt. Sci. 14, 2568–2580 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-016-4329-0

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