Application of GIS-Based Models for Land-Use Planning in China

Land-use planning approach in China was greatly improved over the past decades along with the advance of geographical information technologies such as GIS-based models. This article presents two interesting case studies in recent practice of land-use planning in China, namely major function zoning (MFZ) and national general land use planning (NGLUP) (2006-2020). In the first case, the GIS-based decision support system (DSS) is applied to assist planners to implement a group-based decision-making in the integrated regional planning of Beijing-Tianjin metropolitan area; in the second case, GIS method helps to evaluate the effects of arable land use in different regions of China. Two cases suggest that GIS-based methods are of great help not only because they provide a practical tool in dealing with spatial analysis by combing social, economic, and ecological variables, but also because they promise the involvement of different stakeholders and interactions between experts and public participants.