Integrated Land Governance for Eco-Urbanization

• Main Authors: Zhan Wang, Xiangzheng Deng, Cecilia Wong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2016-09-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: eco-urbanization; ecological intercorrelation; land; urbanization; urban–rural
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/903

“Eco-urbanization” emphasizes the importance of the ecological and environmental aspects of urbanization, which is to approach a balanced and healthy ecosystem through paying attention to the ecological intercorrelation of many factors. This involves balancing the stocks and utilization of multi-resources and balancing the efficiency and equality of multi-resources allocation to improve the quality of life for both urban and rural areas. In this dynamic process, resource allocations are carried out at different administrative levels, which have posed challenges of developing an integrated approach for eco-urbanization. Due to interaction and intersection of ecological activities among adjacent regions, a complex ecosystem tends to be in a fluid catchment area with dynamic flows of activities that transcend rigid administrative boundaries. The management of ecosystem sensitively impinges on the effectiveness of having an integrated approach of land governance in a comprehensive planning of urban–rural development. This will require scientific findings to support a policy-oriented management approach, which can take account of land use/cover changes (LUCC), ecosystem services and functions, interactive impacts of socio-economic transformation and climatic variations for optimum land use allocation to achieve the objective of ecosystem conservation and socio-economic development for both urban and rural area in a sustainable approach. Three aspects of development are identified as the importance of achieving advanced land governance for eco-urbanization. This paper aims to discuss these in turn: first, to find the adaptive measures in response to the uncertainty of climatic variation; second, to understand and research the scale and level of sustainable consumption for balancing resource saving and consumption; and third, to study ecological intercorrelation among multiple factors. We, therefore, argue that the far insight of “economic growth” via an ecologically-centered approach based on scientific solutions of all three aspects and intergovernmental consultations is important to support land governance for eco-urbanization and to strike a balance between environmental conservation and economic development.