Impact of hydropower cascade development on river ecosystem service functions of Upper Bailongjiang River

By taking Jiangzha Section of the Upper Bailongjiang River as a study case,the impact from the small hydropower cascade development of the river section on the river ecosystem service functions is studied herein with both the marketing value method and the opportunity cost method. The result shows that the changing magnitudes of values of all the river ecosystem service functions are to be hydropower erosion control river sediment transport biodiversity conservation vegetation production atmospheric component adjustment,and then the annual positive benefit from the small hydropower cascade development for the Upper Bailongjiang River is RMB 2. 52 × 107 yuan and the annual negative benefit is RMB 8. 01 × 106yuan; in which the negative benefit is mainly from the aspects of the service functions of erosion control,river sediment transport,biodiversity conservation,etc. and the total benefit from the hydropower development is to be accordingly reduced. Therefore,the corresponding countermeasures and protection measures must be proposed as well.