ABSTRACT

Natural landscape provides people the benefits of enjoying the beautiful scenes and relaxing themselves. But for a long time, people’s ignorance of the value and unwise developments take responsibility for the lost of precious natural resources and the broken of ecosystems. One of the solutions is to give the natural landscape proper economic value, it can help people make better decisions and use the natural benefits in a right way.

In this study, we present an indicator system for evaluating 4491 natural landscapes in China. According to the system, the natural landscapes are classified into 5 categories: Scenic spots, Geologic parks, Nature reserves, Forest parks and Wetland parks; 4 classes: the world class, the national class, the regional class and the local class. In addition, the mainland of China is thought to be 4 regions according to the geographical positions and economic levels: the North, the Central, the East and the West.

Using Travel Cost Method and Contingent Valuation Method to evaluate the chosen indexes: tourism value and non-use value. Tourism value is evaluated by travel cost method, and non-use value is evaluated by contingent valuation method. The total value of the natural resources in China which is evaluated, is 3573.5 billion Yuan.

Key Words: natural landscape; travel cost method; contingent valuation method