Abstract:Baiyangdian Lake is the biggest freshwater lake in Northern China, and plays an important role in providing considerable benefits to the region. However, conflicting interests among different stakeholders is hindering cooperation in regulating regional environmental problems that threaten the ability of Baiyangdian Lake to sustain multiple ecosystem services flows. Final ecosystem services are components of nature that are explicitly connected to aspects of human well-being that have direct value to society. Economic valuation of Baiyangdian wetland ecosystem services can reveal the direct contribution of lake ecosystems to human well-being, which can inform the development of ecological compensation measures to incentivize cooperation among stakeholders toward reasonable wetland management. In this study, we first divided the ecosystem services of the Baiyangdian wetland into three categories based on the ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ and ‘Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’ frameworks: provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services. Second, we established a final ecosystem services valuation system based on the interactions between Baiyangdian ecosystem characteristics and regional socio-economic conditions, and determined the final services of concern to policy makers that provide direct benefits to society to avoid double-counting. We then comprehensively valued the direct use value, indirect use value, and non-use value from the 8 final ecosystem services provided by Baiyangdian wetland for 2011, using the market price, replacement cost, individual travel cost, and contingent valuation (pay card) methods. The total value of the ecosystem services from Baiyangdian wetland was estimated to be 35.55×108 Yuan RMB for 2011. Based on the valuation results, the 8 final ecosystem services were ranked from greatest to lowest value as follows: flood control, recreation and tourism, aquatic products, raw material products, non-use value, water resources provision, oxygen release, and carbon sequestration. The values of flood control and recreation and tourism were 14.97×108 and 13.15×108 Yuan per year, accounting for 42.11% and 36.99% of the total value, respectively. The results of this study reflect the multiple contributions of the Baiyangdian wetland to regional stakeholders. This information will help to increase environmental awareness among both the public and decision-makers, and will be useful to managers for developing economic incentives to coordinate different stakeholders to minimize tradeoffs. Lastly, the final service indicator system presented in this paper offers guidance on establishing monitoring programs to incorporate ecosystem services into wetland management.