Distance to river basin affects residents' willingness to pay for ecosystem services: Evidence from the Xijiang river basin in China

Residents' willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem services plays a key role in improving the functions of ecosystems. Previous studies have mainly focused on the differences in residents' WTP in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of river basins. However, the relationship between the vertical distance to river basins and residents' WTP for ecosystem services remains unclear. We conduct a questionnaire survey using a sample of 755 people from 32 villages in the Xijiang River Basin (XJRB), an important water system in China. The influence of the vertical distance to the XJRB on residents' WTP for ecosystem services is analyzed by using a multinomial logit model and latent class model. The key findings are as follows: (1) Residents' WTP for ecosystem services is significantly different with different distances to the XJRB. Respondents within a distance of 3 km to the XJRB have a stronger WTP. (2) The spatial heterogeneity of the influences of distance to the XJRB is well verified, and classifies residents into different latent groups. (3) Comparing WTP at the vertical distance level and horizontal level in the XJRB shows that residents have stronger overall preferences and latent group preferences at the vertical distance level. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between spatial distance to the river basin and residents' WTP for ecosystem services, which should be useful in implementing differentiated river ecosystem service restoration policy.