1.1. Capitalisation and Economic Value of Urban Natural Resources
Urban natural resources are an important factor in determining regional economic security and social development. Due to variations in natural and economic geographies in different regions, the factor endowment of urban natural resources also tend to vary. Generally, urban natural resources are non-excludable, competitive and decaying. They are also called common-pool resources (CPR) in urban development and include land, forest, pasture, water, wetland, mineral resources, and so on. One of the most difficult problems faced by the government or public sector managers is how to achieve the optimal allocation as well as the long-term and healthy development of limited CPR (Hardin, 2009; Grainger & Costello, 2014). In modern urban construction, natural resources may involve various property rights of different stakeholders, whilst citizen behaviours driven by rationality may cause the so-called ‘tragedy of the commons’ phenomenon of resource crowding or resource degradation to CPR. In relation to this, capitalisation has become one of the common management methods of urban natural resources (Arnason, 2012; Grafton et al., 2000). To date, most Chinese cities have successively established and improved natural resource asset operation systems in their respective administrative regions. In 2019, the Chinese government also proposed the ‘Guiding Opinions on the Overall Promotion of the Reform of the Property Right System of Natural Resource Assets’ and the ‘Notice on Organising and Carrying Out the Pilot Work of the Inventory of All Public-Owned Natural Resource Assets’.
Unlike ecological products, urban natural resource assets have ecological and economic benefits. In terms of economic benefits, the exploitation, utilisation and protection of urban natural resource assets often require a labour force or more human resources (Song et al., 2021). These are needed to increase the outputs of natural resource products and create more economic benefits for various industries, such as the eco-tourism industry (Pueyo-Ros et al,. 2018). Eco-tourism is based on the concept of the sustainable development of natural resources (Okan et al., 2016; Weaver and Lawton, 2007). This is a tourism mode that operates on the principle of protecting nature and the ecological environments where scenic sites can be found, including forest parks, nature conservation areas, geological (or wetland) parks and other natural resource assets (Sun et al., 2020). According to a report by the Chinese Government Network (CGN), in 2019, China’s eco-tourism industry received over 3.3 billion tourists, generating revenues of over 850 billion yuan. Thus, in recent years, the characteristic eco-tourism industry based on urban natural resource assets has become a new driver of urban economic development.