China is in the midst of an unprecedented and critical period of strategic opportunities for land consolidation. In this process, the country has been confronted with new situations, opportunities, and serious challenges, all of which urgently require top-level design of strategic planning framework for land consolidation. Based on a SWOT analysis, we propose a strategic planning framework for land consolidation at the national level, with a focus on clarification of internal Strength-Weakness strategies and external Opportunity-Threat strategies involved in the land consolidation process. Whereas it can be concluded that land consolidation in China has not yet entered the stage of landscape-ecological pattern, it is on the brink of that stage. Thus, the proposed strategic plan should provide strong protection for continuous promotion of land consolidation through the application of a top-down and comprehensive design considering agriculture production, livelihood and ecology as comprehensive targets. Meanwhile, it should also unswervingly adhere to the "red line," optimize the layout of urban and rural land use and propel a new landscape-ecological pattern of land consolidation. In this way, strategy-oriented support can be provided to improve land consolidation implementation and ensure that it is stable, coordinated and effective.

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The New-type Urbanization Plan in China is facing planning, economic, and environmental constraints. A fast-growing urban population imposes distinct pressure on social and natural resources in most cities. As a result, the urban land use pattern in China has rapidly expanded from planar to stereoscopic. Although the pattern has effectively maximized the utilization of land resources, the "one-size-fits-all" solution is not applicable to all cities in China. The assessment of the suitability of a city is important before the application of the "three-dimensional" (3D) development approach, especially for cities with important natural endowment at stake. This study proposes a framework to assess the potential of a city for 3D space development in China. Our model considers land use suitability, economic feasibility, and landscape visibility in urban 3D space development decisions. We use Liuzhou City as a case study to demonstrate the empirical implementation of this framework. Our analysis shows that the model can assist urban planners to visualize urban morphology and to identify optimal development directions. By balancing planning, economic, and environmental needs, our model enables local governments to meet their development targets without sacrificing the environment. The proposed framework is a useful tool for local government to realize the New-type Urbanization Plan while ensuring that urban residents "see the mountains, view the rivers, and remember their past."

Abstract:In China, the combination of land supply finitude and land use inefficiency has become a barrier to sustainable development in urban society and the economy. Land consolidation has been widely implemented as a tool to improve the quality and quantity of land use, but is mainly limited to rural areas and focuses on farmland production, while not taking into consideration of aspects such as life, production, and ecology. Furthermore, contemporary research usually focuses on one land consolidation project, ignoring practical project arrangement at a regional macroscopic level and lacking specific differentiation in designing land consolidation projects. This study aims to create a method to determine functional units for land consolidation (FULC) in metropolitan areas to facilitate the sustainable use of land resources and improve the efficiency of land use. Moreover, a framework to assess the overall demarcation of FULC is developed. The proposed model considers the production, life, and ecology functions in the demarcation decisions regarding FULC. A typical metropolitan area, that is, Haidian District, Beijing, is used as a case study to demonstrate this framework. The analysis shows that the model can provide technical support and practical references for planners and executors to arrange different land consolidation projects at the macroscopic level. By taking all production, life, and ecological properties of the land parcels into consideration, the proposed model enables local governments to meet their sustainable development targets by managing specialized projects for FULC as a spatial governance platform.

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