The city’s Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) in 2020 was 130.38 billion yuan (US$20.36 billion), according to the accounting jointly released by the city’s ecology, statistics, and reform and development authorities Friday.
GEP refers to the total value of the final products and services provided by a regional ecosystem for human welfare and sustainable economic and social development. It can be measured in terms of biophysical value and monetary value. GEP can be classified into the value of ecosystem provision, regulating services and cultural services.
The results showed 2.35 billion yuan in the provision value, 69.95 billion yuan in regulating service value and 58.07 billion yuan in nonmaterial service value, accounting for 1.8, 53.7 and 44.5 percent of the total GEP.
The city’s per-unit value of GEP was 65 million yuan per square meters.
In 2020, the climate regulating value was 48.8 billion yuan, 37.4 percent of the GEP. The ecosystem’s climate regulation was 68 billion kWh, or 69 percent of the city’s total power consumption last year. Tourism and leisure service value was 41.9 billion yuan, 32.2 percent of the total GEP. The city’s ecological attractions received 26.18 million visits, and its country, urban and community parks and greenways provided recreation and leisure services for about 1 billion visits.
Shenzhen is the first city in China to adopt the GEP accounting system. After six years of practice, the city government officially released its GEP accounting system in March this year and used it as the region’s unified standard to evaluate ecosystem products and services.
Keeping GEP stable improvement is one of the goals in urban ecological management.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the city will be taking four steps to keep and protect ecological quality, reduce urban projects that have big impacts on GEP, expand city ecological sizes and improve ecological values through green projects like Sponge City project, according to the city’s ecological protection bureau.