Economic value assessment of copper resources in China under the optimal mining path: based on the dual perspectives of demand growth and ecological compensation

The impact of demand growth and ecological compensation on the economic value of mineral resources cannot be ignored, and traditional evaluation models cannot effectively consider these exogenous factors, which may lead to biased evaluation results. To compensate for this deficiency, this paper constructs a dynamic discounted cash flow model by coupling the Hotelling model and the traditional discounted cash flow model. This model evaluates the economic value of copper resources in China from the dual perspectives of demand growth and ecological compensation, and further explores their specific impacts on economic value. The research results find that due to the dynamic discounted cash flow model following the optimal mining path, its evaluation value is slightly higher than that of traditional evaluation models. The ecological compensation mechanism is more conducive to the sustainable utilization of resources, but it reduces the economic value. After considering the increase in demand, the optimal mining path for copper resources in China presents an inverted U-shape, which enhances their economic value. Overall, the value increase brought by demand growth is far greater than the value reduction caused by ecological compensation mechanisms. This study not only enriches the theory and methods of economic value assessment of mineral resources, but also provides reference for the rational development and utilization of copper resources in China.