To assess whether and to what extent the anti-poverty relocation and settlement program (APRSP) in China will be able to resolve the development dilemma of ecosystem conservation and human wellbeing, it is important to study the effects of policy on rural households in terms of the income generation from ecosystem services (ES). We constructed an index of dependence on ecosystem services (IDES) to evaluate the dependence of households’ net income generation on ecosystem services. Using data collected from South Shaanxi Province, we examined the effects of the relocation program on rural households’ IDES. We find that this relocation may benefit the ecosystem by significantly decreasing participants’ IDES. Relocation households have higher net incomes than non-relocation households from total ecosystem services, provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services as well as socio-economic activities. There are significant differences in IDES between groups with different relocation and resettlement characteristics. The anti-poverty relocation program optimized the rural households’ income structure by increasing the proportion of income from socio-economic activities while reducing the proportion of income from ecosystem services. This study provides new evidence for evaluating eco-conservation and development policies by linking ecosystem services and human well-being at a micro scale. We also address the policy implications of our analysis for anti-poverty relocation programs.

Relocation is widely adopted as a poverty reduction strategy, yet how its effects extend from basic survival to sustained household development remains insufficiently understood. Building on a distinction between survival- and development-related poverty, this study evaluates the impact of poverty alleviation relocation on household multidimensional poverty. Using household survey data from an early pilot region of China's Poverty Alleviation Relocation Program (PARP) and the control function approach, we find that PARP significantly reduces survival poverty, but its effect on developmental poverty is not statistically significant. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effects of PARP do not differ significantly across relocation strategies, whereas its effects vary with household endowments and resource bases across poverty dimensions. The mechanism analysis further shows that PARP affects household multidimensional poverty partly through changes in household livelihood strategies: the reduction in agricultural participation following relocation partially offsets the poverty-reducing effects of PARP on both survival and developmental poverty, while the reallocation of household labor to external labor markets provides an indirect pathway through which PARP reduces developmental poverty. Moreover, government subsidies strengthen the poverty-reducing effect of PARP on survival poverty, whereas training strengthens its effect on developmental poverty. Our findings highlight the distinct effects of relocation across survival and developmental poverty and provide empirical evidence for tailoring stage-specific interventions to help relocated households move beyond improved living conditions toward sustained development.