Recently, the East Red Reservoir Sludge Resource Utilization Project of Taili City, Heilongjiang Province, completed a key transaction in Heilongjiang Province’s Natural and Ecological Resource Trading Platform: 145.41 million cubic meters of reservoir sludge through six bidding rounds, and was finally traded at 6.102.98 million yuan, with a premium rate of 5.2%. As the first practical case in the country to implement the resource utilization of reservoir sludge using the EOD model (Ecological Environment-Oriented Development), this transaction marks a landmark step in Heilongjiang Province in promoting the value transformation of ecological products of the reservoir by relying on the construction of Happy River Lake.

Breaking the ‘sludge trap’: the shift from ‘ecological burden’ to ‘green resources’

As a small (1) type reservoir, the long-term operation has accumulated serious sludge problems – the reservoir capacity corresponding to the calibration flood level and the design flood level has decreased by 13.9% and 14.1%, respectively, and the core functions such as flood prevention and irrigation have declined sharply. Before this, the traditional reservoir sludge faced the triple dilemma of “lack of funds, difficult disposal, and lack of cash”, sludge once became an “ecological burden” that limited the restoration of the reservoir function.

In order to break this deadlock, Heilongjiang Province, with institutional innovation as the core and science and technology empowerment as the support, has built a closed-loop transformation system of "resources - assets - capital - capital", successfully promoting the transformation of sediment from "waste to be treated" to "exploitable resources", achieving a two-way breakthrough of ecological problems and economic value.

Four-dimensional synergy: creating ecological value transformation of river and lake reservoirs "Longjiang model"

System problem: open the whole process of value transformation of ecological products

Heilongjiang Province strengthened the top-level design at the provincial level by issuing the provincial general river and lake chief order No. 9, clearly incorporating "promoting the value transformation of river and lake reservoir ecological products" into the key tasks, and setting the direction for the ecological governance of reservoirs and the utilization of sediment resources. At the same time, the study drafted special implementation opinions, clearly defining the process of ecological product transformation, the path and the promotion measures; guiding the city of Yichun and the city of Railway to support the introduction of seven local policies such as registration of rights, ecological clearance and sediment utilization, and innovating the establishment of a "three-power division" framework of "ownership rights to the government, operating rights to the market flow, and contracting rights to enterprises", from the institutional level to break the core bottleneck of "difficult to measure, difficult to mortgage, difficult to trade, difficult to cash out" of river and lake reservoir ecological products.

Science and Technology Empowerment: Accurate Quantification of Ecological Resources

In order to accurately grasp the ecological and economic value of the sediment, the project introduced “space and earth” integrated three-dimensional collaborative monitoring technology – combining satellite remote sensing, drone aerial photography and geological drilling, combining laboratory detection data, to comprehensively grasp the typical heavy metals and nutrient content in the sediment. Further construction of the geological value model, accurately accounting for the sediment stock (a total of 153.53 million cubic meters, of which 145.41 million cubic meters can be used for resource utilization), and mapping the spatial distribution differences, converting the original static sediment into traceable, measurable data assets.

Market bidding: maximizing the economic potential of releasing ecological resources

Relying on the natural and ecological resources trading platform of Heilongjiang Province, the project innovation adopts the network open bidding model of "evaluation pricing + dynamic bidding": based on the scientific evaluation value to set the transaction benchmark price, set up a bidding ladder of 500,000 yuan / time, through full market competition, the final transaction amount is higher than the evaluation price of 334.78 million yuan, both achieving the maximum release of the economic value of ecological resources, and also fully playing the decisive role of the market in resource allocation.

Benefit Sharing: Building an Eco-Economic virtuous cycle

The winning enterprise plans to use the sludge for organic fertilizer production, saline land improvement, construction skeleton processing and other fields to extend the green industrial chain. At the same time, with the right to the proceeds of the project in the next five years as a pledge, the Chinese Agricultural Development Bank's Heilongjiang Provincial Branch granted a 45 million yuan green loan to provide financial guarantee for the project landing. More importantly, the enterprise pledges to extract no less than 5% of the operating proceeds into the local financial ecological repair special account, dedicated to the construction, ecological repair and maintenance of the Happy River Lake in the Eastern Red Reservoir, forming a closed loop of "ecological governance - industrial development - income anti-mammalian ecology" to achieve deep integration of the protection and green development of the river lake.

Win-win: Achieve synergistic improvement of ecological, economic and social benefits

The implementation of this project will bring multiple benefits to the Eastern Red Reservoir: on the one hand, the reservoir capacity will be effectively restored, flood prevention and irrigation capacity will be significantly improved, and the regional water ecological environment will continue to improve; on the other hand, it is expected to drive the output value of related industries such as organic fertilizer, saline soil improvement, and building bones to exceed 200 million yuan, directly creating nearly 200 jobs, and driving the surrounding masses to increase income. Through this practice, Heilongjiang Province has truly realized "making green water mountains into golden mountains and silver mountains", achieving a win-win situation of river and lake protection governance and economic and social development.

Editor/Wang Xia