Smart Regulation Technology Of Land Use Planning

Land use change has been a significant concern and focus of the study of globalenvironment change. The latest Global Land Programme(GLP) emphasizes particularlyon the transformation of land use from agricultural land to urbanized areas. China'srapid urbanization and industrialization and increasing population will bring morechallenges and opportunities in the next ten to fifteen years. However, it will also lead toa sharp conflict between the demand for land resource and land supply. An explorationof a smart regulation technology of land use planning will be of great importance forfarmland protection, growth control of impervious lands, and sustainable development.During the transition of economic systems from a centrally planned economy to amore market-oriented economy, the role of land use planning should be strengthened tohelp correct the market failure. Using Zhejiang Province, China, as a case study, thispaper explores a regulation technology used to preserve farmland and control urbansprawl in regional land use planning. The following conclusions are drawn from thestudy:(1)Based on the quantitative and spatial databases of land resource investigations, thestudy analyzed the land use facts in 1984, 1996 and. 2005 respectively. A land usematrix was designed and land use changes between 1996 and 2005 were identified. Thestudy showed that the main reason resulting in farmland loss was agricultural structureadjustment, ecological reclamation, and agricultural infrastructure construction, whichcaused 59.39% of the total loss of agricultural land. The agricultural land loss by urbanencroachment accounted for 37.65%. In addition, the quality of regional agriculturalland was declining gradually because the lost farmland in suburban areas was usuallymore fertile and productive than those newly added ones.(2)Land use changes in Zhejiang Province were extremely significant between 1996and 2005. For example, the land increased for urban and rural residential and industrialduring this period was 18.09×10~4 ha, which accounted for 32.42% of the totalresidential and industrial land in 1996. In addition, the new construction occupied 15.48×10~4 ha of arable land. Based on this study, the paper concluded that the second roundof land use planning at the provincial, city, county, and town levels had not successfullyregulated the conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural land. However, somesystem innovations of small-scale land use planning and implementation, such as theestablishment of "replacement buffer areas", land management "discount indicator" ofcross-regional compensation adjustment, had played successful roles in providing growth prospects for the future development, increasing the flexibility of planning,strengthening farmland infrastructure construction, and maintaining the balance offarmland quantity. The most influential innovation is "flexible spatial planning", whichis an effective compensation for rigid planning, and ralatively meets the needs ofrational urban expansion.(3)Land use planning is a system of allocating optimally land resources. Particularly,it defines the "land development rights." Under the new situation, the concept of landuse planning will face "five new changes." First, the planning structure will change froma top-down form to a two-way collaboration process. Second, land use planning willchange from focusing on one objective of protecting farmland to developing amulti-objective strategy to protect regional development. Third, the plan method willchange from a "quota control" system to a dual control system of both quota and spatialcontrol (zoning). Fourth, planning will involve more public participation in thedecision-making process and move from reactive to active planning. Fifth, dynamicland use planning system will be introduced into practice, and the planning mode willshift from an objective-oriented approach towards a process-oriented approach(dynamic land use planning). With these changes, land use planning will graduallyevolve towards a comprehensive regional spatial planning(4)The spatial structure of industry clusters and urban system at the macro scaledetermines spatial pattern of land use. A good spatial pattern of industry clusters cancontribute to an intensive land use and help control the occupation of agricultural land.The spatial pattern of the urban system will guide spatial structure management, patternof infrastructure, and development direction of urban space. The study of the above twoelements will help achieve efficient land uses.(5)Based on the credible database of spatial land resources from small scale to largescale, the paper proposed a synchronization planning of multi-scale in ZhejiangProvince. The synchronization planning can help consolidate planning elements andtheir quantitative information on a relatively large scale, improve the accuracy ofplanning spatial pattern, and therefore providing scientific decision-making basis forquantitative management and spatial control. The empirical study is a planned freewayin the coastal region, Zhejiang Province.(6)In response to a lot of uncertainties emerged during the transformation of theeconomic systems, a flexible spatial planning is needed in the near future. The paperputs forward the establishment of "flexible development buffers" in towns, where mostof occupations of farmland often happen. This planning approach will figure out theamount farmland that can be possibly converted, is equal to the decreased ruralresidential land and roads, which must be rehabilitated into agricultural land. Thequantitative areas are allowed transferred among different towns based on purchase.(7)This paper suggests that Zhejiang Province establish a TDR (transferabledevelopment rights) system in land use planning. It also suggests integrating the twoexisting TDR approaches of primary level into the new TDR system. The two primaryTDR approaches are the quantity insurance of prime farmland in other counties andadded farmland quota transfer between different counties. The TDR will help maintainthe amount of agricultural land at a regional level. It also helps promote capital circulation by transferring excessive funds from developed regions to developingregions in Zhejiang Province.(8)Based on the satellite images of SPOT5, the paper studied the technological routefor the dynamical monitoring of land use plan implementation and confirmed thefeasibility of spatial high-resolution remote sensing images in the dynamic monitoringof Tangxi town land use planning, Yuhang County. High-resolution remote sensingimages of SPOT5 provide technological support for dynamically monitoring theimplementation of small scale plans.(9)The paper established an indicator system for evaluating the implementation ofland use planning of medium and small scale in Zhejiang Province. The indicatorsystem includes six aspects and twenty factors. This evaluation method is named"layered multi-indicator", which has been successfully applied in Shangyu County,Zhejiang Province.