Spatial misallocation of ecological restoration and resulting economic costs in the red soil hilly region of China: a case study of the Zhuxi watershed

The spatial misallocation of ecological restoration and its associated economic costs may lead to ecological restoration failure. We analyzed environmental effects of ecological restoration measures, using data from runoff plots, and estimated the ecosystem states under different types of ecological restoration measures using a catastrophe model. We then assessed the spatial misallocation of restoration between sites, where natural restoration can still be used versus those where artificial restoration should be used instead, and estimated the resulting economic costs due to this misallocation in the Zhuxi watershed in the red soil hilly region of China. Results using the catastrophe model were different from those obtained solely based on linear analyses of the runoff plots. Linear models were found to not apply well to the distribution of ecological restoration measures because Changting County reapplied for funding from 2012 to 2017 to maintain projects. There was much spatial misallocation in the studied region, with artificial restoration used at many sites where natural restoration can still be used, which resulted in economic costs of 2453.00 × 10⁴ Chinese renminbi (RMB) from 2012 to 2017. The catastrophe model could analyze the spatial misallocation of ecological restoration and its associated economic costs, and it could reveal the catastrophic phenomena that traditional approaches could not.