The evaluation of river ecosystem services in Chongming Island, China

Chongming Island is the world´s largest alluvial island, in which river ecosystem is a major component of the terrestrial surface water ecosystem. Using the methods of environmental economics, such as market valuation method, shadow engineering method and protection costs method, the values of river ecosystem services in Chongming Island were assessed. We find that the total services values are 136.415 billion $/yr. The values of various services are ordered as: water storage> water supply> aquatic product>gas regulation>water purification>transporting sediment>flood control > travelling and recreation > research and education > shipping > habitat > soil formation. The results indicate that water storage is the main service but water supply is the core service; habitat and travelling & recreation have lower values, which should be improved. We conclude that river management should consider the characteristic of overall usefulness of ecosystem to optimize all the services in the future, ascending river ecosystem management.