Evaluation of external benefits in rural-urban land conversion in HongShan Distract of Wuhan city

With the acceleration of rural-urban land conversion and the development of our society. It is important to evaluate the external benefits loss in rural-urban land conversion. In this paper, the author´s use the contingent valuation method (CVM) to evaluate the external benefits loss of rural-urban land conversion in Hongshan District, Wuhan. Several conclusions can be drawn from the study. Firstly, 81.87% of the farmers have a positive willingness to pay (WTP) to protect agricultural land. The average of the farmers´ WTP to protect the agricultural land is 292.56 RMB per hectare per year, which are obviously affected by their gender, family income and income from agriculture. Secondly, 83.68% of the citizens have a positive willingness to pay (WTP) to protect agricultural land while and the citizens´ is 361.89 RMB per hectare per year, which are obviously affected by their gender, education level, income, agricultural income proportion and so on. Thirdly, according to the residents´ WTP to protect local agricultural land, the external benefits of rural-urban conversion in Hongshan District in 2008 may be quantified as a total of 23.64×108RMB, being 29.25×104RMB per hectare.