Revealing urban residents’ intention to pay for the greening of farmland in the urban fringe by extending the theory of planned behavior: Insights from payment for ecosystem services

The greening of farmland in the urban fringe improves the resilience of urban ecosystem and brings more abundant ecosystem services to urban residents. From the perspective of payment for ecosystem services, this study explored urban residents’ intention to pay for the improved ecosystem by extending the theory of planned behavior. The main findings are as follows. First, 76% of urban residents had a relatively strong payment intention. Second, moral obligation was the foremost factor that affects intention, which highlights the importance of individuals’ intrinsic sense of responsibility and social altruism to mould “greening action”. Third, the positive effect of behavioral attitude was subsequently highlighted, therefore, the government should shape decision-makers’ positive attitudes by propagandizing the value of green farmland. Fourth, both ecosystem service perception and nature affinity had a significant and positive impact on payment intention, and further, ecosystem service perception mediated the impact of nature affinity on intention. This observation provides policymakers with enlightenment that measures to enhance urban residents’ nature affinity, are also effective in improving ecosystem service perception. Moreover, the average payment level of urban residents was 174.7CNY per year. If payment intention can be catalyzed into actual payment behavior, it expected to greatly contribute to the financing of greening action. These results can help policymakers better understand the sustainable path of farmland greening from the perspective of payment for ecosystem services.