An empirical study of the design of an ecological damage compensation assessment framework for land reclamation from the sea

Incorporating the cost of ecological damage into the pricing of natural resource asset utilization is a critical aspect of reform. Land reclamation from the sea is a usage mode that fundamentally alters the natural attributes of sea areas. Therefore, research on ecological damage compensation for land reclamation is imperative for allocating sea area resources using paid use collection standards. This paper proposes an ecological damage compensation assessment framework that sets the ecological compensation range based on the “opportunity cost” of land reclamation as the lower limit of compensation and the loss of marine ecosystem services and goods as the upper limit, accompanied by empirical research. The results find significant differences in ecological damage across different sea areas, with the minimum loss amount of port and shipping type at 551.70 yuan/ha, and the maximum loss amount of agricultural reclamation type at 2861.47 yuan/ha. Therefore, differentiated ecological compensation and dynamic adjustment of compensation standards are necessary to leverage the market’s economic influence in reclamation management.