Abstract:Forest ecosystem, the most important ecosystem in Beijing, covers 35% of the administrative area and plays a key role in the maintenance of urban ecological security by providing many fundamental ecosystem services to local and surrounding communities. In Beijing, co-compensation has been gradually considered a potentially valuable tool for policymakers to better address ecological conservation and environmental issues. Eco-compensation is distributed by policymakers to manage natural resources and to address the misalignments between socially and privately optimal levels of ecosystem service provisioning. Ecological forests play a key role in the maintenance of ecological security in Beijing, and two eco-compensation programs that target forest ecosystems have been implemented in Beijing since 2004. These eco-compensation programs for forest construction have contributed to the equal distribution of ecological and economic benefits between protectors and beneficiaries. However, these eco-compensation programs have issues in payment standards for several reasons. First, the current standards are based on the fiscal capability of the government rather than the magnitudes of forest ecosystem service value. Second, a one-size-fits-all standard is used for eco-compensation programs, which cannot reflect the contributions of different ecosystem services. Third, location diversity indicators are not taken into account in the current payment standard. To address these issues, a more reasonable and scientific determination of payment standards was established in this study. Because hydrological regulation is the primary sub-type of ecosystem services supported by the mountain ecological forests in Beijing, the economic values of hydrological regulation services in each sublot were calculated to represent the ecological forest ecosystem service value in the mountain areas in our study. The different geographical locations create different social and economic development dimensions in forest ecosystem services. Even if the ecosystem service values were the same, the relative importance of the forest ecosystem service would be different because of the different geographical locations. Therefore, three location indicators for the ecological forest sublot were considered for the determination of eco-compensation standards in this study, namely, eco-environment indicator, function-oriented zone indicator, and relative scarcity indicator. The value of the eco-environment indicator was based on the ecological importance level and ecological fragility level of each forest sublot. Function-oriented zone indicator value was assigned to each sublot according to the type of function zone in which the sublot was located. The relative scarcity indicator value was assigned according to the population density of each district. On the basis of the recommended eco-compensation standards, the eco-compensation standard was from 176 to 2168 RMB/hm2. The first and second highest eco-compensation standards were in Yanqing and Huairou, and the two lowest ones were in Central Town and Fangshan. The average value of the eco-compensation standard of Beijing was about 1265 RMB/hm2, which isclose to the total standards of the current two eco-compensation programs in Beijing. The results of our study would help in understanding the exact forest ecosystem service value and make recommendations for reasonable and feasible eco-compensation standards of mountain ecological forests. The recommended eco-compensation standards in this study, which reflect both the ecosystem services value and relative importance of forest ecosystem services on the basis of geographical location, would help policy and decision makers to design dynamic and diversified eco-compensation schemes for future eco-compensation initiatives with higher chances of success and contribute to the conservation and sustainability of forest resources.