Ecological compensation standard constitutes the core of payment for watershed ecosystem

on which tremendous amount of researches have been done with debating perspectives.Based on the "Assessment Standard for Forest Ecosystem Services(LY/T1721-2008)" published by the Department of Forestry

a case study was conducted on the forest ecosystem of Qiupu River in the base year of 2007.The results show that total value of the forest ecosystem services was about 5.47×108 yuan.Based on the externality principle

ecological compensation standards should be established according to spatial variations of ecosystem services.The upper limit of ecological compensation should not be higher than the total value of forest ecosystem services

while the lower limit should be set as the value of the leading function(e.g

water resources conservation and soil conservation)

which was 2.16 ×108 yuan for the study site.