Beijing–Hebei Miyun Reservoir Paddy-to-Dryland Watershed Compensation Programme

Beijing draws much of its drinking water from the Miyun Reservoir, whose catchment lies mostly outside the capital, in Hebei province's Chengde and Zhangjiakou municipalities. Since 2001 the governments have run a watershed cooperation framework, and in 2006 they signed a Paddy-Land-to-Dry-Land (PLDL) agreement under which Beijing pays upstream farmers to stop growing water-intensive rice.

Farmers who converted paddies to dryland crops such as maize received 450 yuan per mu per year from 2006, rising to 550 yuan per mu per year in 2008; by 2010 all 103,000 mu (roughly 6,870 hectares) of rice paddies in the target area had been converted. A peer-reviewed evaluation, based on a survey of 723 households (394 participants and 329 non-participants), found the conversion increased downstream water yield by about 18.2 million cubic metres a year and cut total nitrogen and phosphorus loads by 10.36 and 4.34 tonnes a year respectively, for an estimated benefit-cost ratio of 1.5.

The trade-off was not cost-free for participants: households that converted saw agricultural income fall by roughly 2,000 yuan relative to non-participants, an amount they made up mainly through migrant labour earning over 3,000 yuan more. More strikingly, over 88% of participating households said they would revert to rice farming if payments stopped, underlining how dependent the environmental gains are on compensation continuing indefinitely. A separate ecosystem-service-flow study estimated the full value of the water services Hebei's upper watershed provides to Beijing at roughly $62.8 million a year — well above what farmers actually receive — suggesting the programme, while effective, may still under-compensate upstream communities relative to the benefit Beijing gains.

Because the conversion was completed by 2010 and payments are administratively renewed rather than independently re-verified each year, more recent, up-to-date figures on current payment levels or reservoir water quality were not found in the available literature; the evidence above reflects the best peer-reviewed assessment of the programme's 2006-2010 conversion phase.

Read more: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3799363/

Read the full analysis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041617307374