Willingness to accept compensation for land fallowing: results from a survey of village representatives in Northern China

Economic instruments have been increasingly adopted by governments around the world to address water scarcity problems because of their potential to achieve environmental outcomes in more cost-effective ways. This is the first study to estimate the willingness to accept compensation for land fallowing in rural China. Using survey data collected from village representatives in Northern China (mainly village leaders, party secretaries and village accountants), our results suggest that in groundwater irrigated sample villages, at least 28 per cent of respondents have a compensation expectation lower than the standard level of 500 yuan/mu/year for one season of fallowing set by the Government. Water scarcity measures such as irrigation supply reliability and depth-to-groundwater within a village are found to have statistically significant effects on the likelihood of fallowing land in groundwater irrigated villages.