Current Situation, Dilemmas and Measures to Improve Horizontal Ecological Compensation Coordination Mechanisms in River Basins

Flowing water resources and relatively fixed regional segmentation form a governance problem. The essence of horizontal collaborative governance is the establishment of coordination and cooperation processes between different independent and decentralized stakeholders in order to solve cross-regional public problems. As a result, the process of collaborative governance involves a jagged relationship of rights and responsibilities. This study attempts to explore how to achieve cross-regional intergovernmental joint prevention and treatment, and build a coordinated governance mechanism for a whole river basin. Based on data sources including local statistical yearbooks, open data of ecological environment departments and policy texts, this paper performs a comparative analysis of the current water quality status of various major water bodies in China and the relevant domestic ecological compensation systems. Based on this analysis, the current water quality situation is not optimistic. In order to strengthen the ecological and environmental management of river basins, more than 40 relevant systems and implementation schemes of ecological compensation for river basins have been introduced from the central government to the local government level since 2016, and 13 cross-provincial agreements (schemes) on horizontal ecological compensation for river basins have been signed. By analyzing various data and more than 53 systems (programs), it becomes apparent there are some problems in the governance of aquatic environments of river basins in China. These problems include a lack of laws and regulations on ecological compensation, imperfect coordination mechanisms, a single compensation mode and insufficient amounts of compensation. Based on this, this study proposes that China’s cross-regional river basin ecological compensation and collaborative governance mechanisms should start with differential governance; explore a variety of horizontal ecological compensation methods according to local conditions; improve cross-regional river basin collaborative mechanisms, laws and regulations; build a new path of horizontal independent collaboration; broaden the channels of financial compensation; and comprehensively improve the level of regional linkages in the governance of river basins.