Similar gaps can be found in other land-based FRM projects in China as well. Associated with the widely praised “Grain for Green Program (1999–2020)” ( Bryan et al., 2018 ; Du et al., 2019a ), which can increase the flood regulation capacity and reduce soil erosion of the ecosystems in the upper reaches of Chinese major rivers, a key factor for the success is that the farmers can get net benefits from the program ( Delang and Yuan, 2015 ). However, this mechanism should be difficult to upscale to other cases as the financial support from the central government cannot be always sufficient. Recently, the “Sponge Cities” project is applied in 34 Chinese cities to enable the urban landscape to act like sponges absorbing storm-waters ( Du et al., 2019b ). However, its sustainable implementation is uncertain considering a low public participation and a heavy dependence on the financial subsidy from the central government ( Jiang et al., 2018 ).
