Resettlement's impact on the domestic economy in lake restoration: a case study of Poyang Lake region

The Chinese government started a lake restoration project in Poyang Lake region 10 years ago, and the expost monitor of the migrants' livelihoods was limited. This paper compares the composition difference of domestic income and domestic consumption between migration and non-migration villages in Poyang Lake region. The results show that the migrants' domestic income has increased in the last 10 years, which originated from the increasing trend of active and extensive rural labor migration, while the resettlement has not influenced the domestic income significantly. The resettlement stimulates younger farmers to work far away from home whose wages contribute nearly 80% of domestic income. The resettlement decreases their savings due to higher expenditure of daily life for those who work far away from home, and higher expenditure of food for those who stay at home, losing cultivated lands with irrigation system for vegetable. On the other hand, the increase of rural labor migration leads the migrants who stay at home to have access to more cultivated lands for rice and cotton, and the farmers also apply more fertilizer in the same cultivated land for more agriculture products. The resettlement makes most of migrants spend their savings on the improvement of their housing conditions due to not enough governmental financial support for new building. After the analysis, some factors that influence migrants' income and consumption are discussed. The paper may contribute to the building of Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone.