Quantitative evaluation of ecological compensation policies for the watershed in China: based on the improved Policy Modeling Consistency Index

Ecological compensation policies for the watershed (ECPW) have played a guiding role in establishing a sound watershed ecological compensation system with Chinese characteristics, and the quantitative evaluation of current policies can provide a reference for policy optimization. Firstly, taking 77 ECPW promulgated in China from 2006 to 2020 as the research objects, this paper extracted keyword frequencies using a text mining method, and then selected the policy indicators by combining the policy characteristics and existing results of watershed ecological compensation. Secondly, the Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process was used to determine the weights of the variables and improve the Policy Modeling Consistency Index (PMC-Index). Finally, the empirical analysis was conducted on six typical policies and the differences among P1, P3, and P5 at the three levels of the national, provincial, and municipal levels were further explored and compared. It was found that (1) the consistency evaluation of P1, P2, P3, and P4 were excellent levels, and that of P5 and P6 were acceptable levels. (2) The mean value of an improved PMC-Index of the six strategies was 0.6287, which indicated that the overall performance of the quality of ECPW was good, but still room for improvement. (3) The quality of China’s ECPW showed a trend that the higher the level of government, the better the overall performance of the policy. The more targeted the ECPW, the lower the PMC index score, which is manifested in indicators such as incentive measures, policy mechanisms, policy areas, and policy functions. This study helps to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of China’s single ECPW.