Theory And Method For Measuring The Effectiveness Of Spatial Plan

Spatial planning system is undergoing revolution both at home and abroad,while reseach on planning effectiveness is still lagging behind,leaving the basic questiones such as "what factual role spatial plans have played","if plans failed,where the problems lie" unsolved.Bewilderments on these issues may create blindness in planning reformation.Furthering studies on planning effectiveness will promote the development of planning theory and practice.How to gauge the success of spatial plan is a key challenge in studies on plan effectiveness.Based on improving and integrating exist representitative theories,a new framework was built to evaluate the sucess of plan implementation.With that frame,this paper gauged the sucess of Guiyang's comprehensive land use plan on farmland protection and urban growth managment,and analysed the infuencing factors and policy implications.Main conlusions are as follows:(1)The measure of conformance should include the iplementation of related quotas and actual land use to accomodate the characteristics of the land use plan in China.The method for appraising the confromanity between land use and plan was optimized from three aspects:estabilishing systematic spatial matching indexes including compliance rate,saturation degree and reserve rate,and dividing consistency into strongly effective,weakly effective,strongly ineffective and weakly ineffective from the perspective of land use change,and distinguishing valid,semi-valid and invalid degrees according to the spatial distribution.The new evaluating method better reveals the conformance between reality and plan,and its degrees and driving forces.(2)The connotation of plan performance could be deconstructed into influencing decision and optimizing decision.The key difficulties in estimating plan performance lied in how to investgate the influence plan plays on decision-making when the decision goes against the plan and how to measure the plan's function in improving decision-making and problem-solving abilities.Suggested by the author,the two challenges could be facilitated through checking the relationship between the decision and the the goal of plan and appraising the ex post benifits of plan respectively,which allowed we to evaluate plan performance directly and objectively.(3)By integrating Conformance and Performance,the new framework included the consistency between reality and plan,and the influence and improving effects of plan on decesions.Specifically,if the result conformed to the plan,plan works;otherwise we need to figure out whether the decision-maker referred to plan.If the decision against planning measure complied with planning goal,plan suceeded.If not,then went on to check the rationality of planning goal,which would determine the justification of the decision that broke the plan and whether this decision undermined the effectiveness of the plan.Compared to other theory for evaluating plan effectiveness,this framework was more comprehensive and practicable.(4)The case study indicated that farmland protection in Guiyang suffered fast consumption and lagged replenishment,and that driven by decreace in farmland in and increace in farmland out the planned area,compliance rate and saturation degree decreased while reserve rate rose.Fortunately,the new farmland and the requisitioned farmland that belong to invalid degree from the perspective of spatial distribution enjoyed a low share.And the quotas for construction land were nearly exhausted.Fast expansion of urban land both in and out planned area brougth down compliance rate and reserve rate while upraised saturation degree,though land development that not adjacent to planned area was infrequent.Generally,the land use plan made effects on follow-up decisions,despite some slight discrepancies existed.Some decision didn't impede the realization of planning goals even if they didn't adopt planning measures,whilst some did since the planning goal was not rational or the the decision-maker ignored the plan.New urban land out the palnned area could be classified into plan adjustment,development of low-slope hilly,base adjustment,so-called "pothook of city construction land increase and rural residential land decrease" and illegal construction.In most cases,decisions belong to the former two didn't go against the planned goals,and the third and forth categories facilitated the realization the planned goals,while the last damaged plan effectiveness.From the ex post benefits perspective,the transformed farmland was supplemented with newly exploited farmland that was less in amount,worse in quality and lower on agricultural productivity.Moreover,farmland expoitation encroached ecological land and aggravated soil erosion.For urban land,capital investment and output capacity per unit area were rising whilst population density descending.Compared to other cities,urban expasion in case area was relatively ahead of increment of urban population and economy and at a high cost of farmland conversion.In addition,extensive and intensive utilizattion coexisted on the newly developed land that located outside planned areas.(5)Plan failure resulted mainly from irrational planning schemes,conflicting planning goals,flaws in planning rigidity and elasticity and in implementation management,local governments' pursuit of partial interests,and market impacts.Correspondingly,transforming the strategic goal of farmland protection to maintaining agricultural productivity,balancing palnning rigidity and elasticity through enhancing both the binding and flexibility,rising the guiding force and inclusivity of plan for the market subject,and optimizing plan implementation management might be conducive to plan success.