sustainability Article A Developed Framework for the Multi-District Ecological Compensation Standards Integrating Ecosystem Service Zoning in an Urban Area in China Jia He 1,2, Yu Wan 3, Zhonglin Tang 1,2, Xiaodong Zhu 4,* and Chuanhao Wen 5,* 1 National Research Center for Upper Yangtze Economy, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China 2 School of Economics, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China 3 School of River and Ocean Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing 400074, China 4 State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China 5 School of Economics, Yunnan University, Yunnan 650500, China * Correspondence:
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[email protected] (C.W.); Tel.: +86-138-0903-8178 (X.Z.); +86-185-0234-0601 (C.W.) Received: 26 June 2019; Accepted: 3 September 2019; Published: 6 September 2019 Abstract: Ecological compensation is an effective means to adjust relationships among stakeholders in order to conserve and/or sustainably use ecosystem services. The current ecological compensation standards (ECS) do not well reflect the differences in ecological, social, and economic development. Thus, we took a typical urbanization area (the Suzhou–Wuxi–Changzhou region) in China as an example, because of its prominent contradiction between rapid socio-economic development and fragile ecosystem. Combined with the ecological, economic, and social conditions, the methods of ecosystem service value (ESV) evaluation, cluster analysis, and scenario analysis were used to propose an optimized spatial zoning method and optimal development scenario. Then, the ECS by different zones were determined by using ESV assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and contingent valuation method.