Abstract: Yangtze River Protection is a crucial part of the Chinese national ecological civilization construction. Establishing ecological compensation system for the river basin is a pivotal mechanism of implementing the Yangtze River Protection. The current research situation and practice of ecological compensation in the Yangtze River Basin are summarized. On this basis, the key scientific issues and potential solutions in the ecological compensation of the Yangtze River Basin are put forward. The key scientific issues include: the spatial-temporal relationship and mutual feedback mechanism of economic and social development and eco-environmental protection and between upstream and downstream areas of the basin, the dynamic accounting and space-time conversion relation of the physical and value amounts of natural resources, and the market-oriented multi-stakeholder compensation modes. In order to solve these problems, we should not only learn from foreign theories and methods, but also combine scientific problems with management problems according to the natural resources endowment and economic and social development level of China and the Yangtze River Basin. Only in this way can we establish an effective, scientific and reasonable ecological compensation mechanism and realize the great protection of the Yangtze River and the high-quality development of the river basin.

Key words: Yangtze River Basin, ecological compensation, Great protection of Yangtze River, ecological service function, interaction mechanism;compensation modes and mechanism