Evaluation on the eco-economic benefits of rural energy construction and sloping land conversion to forest program

This paper evaluated the eco-economic benefits of rural energy construction and SLCP based on GIS and RS to take West Qinling Mountains as an example. The ecological and economic benefits that using the solar stove and the biogas is remarkable in west Qinling mountain areas. The quantity of heat, a household with 5 persons obtaining from one 1.5 m² solar stove and one 8 m³ biogas digester in each year, is equal to 773 kgce or 1353 kg fuel wood, whose net income is 278 Yuan. The quantity of fuel wood substituted in a year comes up to the growth quantity of 0.338 ha forest land in each year, which could protect 0.042 ha woodland against cutting. The income that peasants obtain from Sloping Land Conversion to Forest Program (SLCP) is 465 Yuan on average per annum. Beside grain production, the income from SLCF is mainly the production cost saved as grains were no longer planted. SLCF intending to expand the forest increment should be taken as a medium and long-term strategy and brought into effect steadily. Using the solar stove and the biogas takes to protect existent forest as the goal, is a trenchancy instrument of consolidated effect of SLCF and ecological constructing, and should be increase invested and constructed.