Land Use Zoning at the County Level Based on a Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm: A Case Study from Yicheng, China

Yaolin Liu,Xiang Zhao,Zhongqiu Liu,Yingli Ji,Hua Wang

doi:10.3390/ijerph9082801

Abstract

Comprehensive land-use planning (CLUP) at the county level in China must include land-use zoning. This is specifically stipulated by the China Land Management Law and aims to achieve strict control on the usages of land. The land-use zoning problem is treated as a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP) in this article, which is different from the traditional treatment. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) based model is applied to the problem and is developed to maximize the attribute differences between land-use zones, the spatial compactness, the degree of spatial harmony and the ecological benefits of the land-use zones. This is subject to some constraints such as: the quantity limitations for varying land-use zones, regulations assigning land units to a certain land-use zone, and the stipulation of a minimum parcel area in a land-use zoning map. In addition, a crossover and mutation operator from a genetic algorithm is adopted to avoid the prematurity of PSO. The results obtained for Yicheng, a county in central China, using different objective weighting schemes, are compared and suggest that: (1) the fundamental demand for attribute difference between land-use zones leads to a mass of fragmentary land-use zones; (2) the spatial pattern of land-use zones is remarkably optimized when a weight is given to the sub-objectives of spatial compactness and the degree of spatial harmony, simultaneously, with a reduction of attribute difference between land-use zones; (3) when a weight is given to the sub-objective of ecological benefits of the land-use zones, the ecological benefits get a slight increase also at the expense of a reduction in attribute difference between land-use zones; (4) the pursuit of spatial harmony or spatial compactness may have a negative effect on each other; (5) an increase in the ecological benefits may improve the spatial compactness and spatial harmony of the land-use zones; (6) adjusting the weights assigned to each sub-objective can generate a corresponding optimal solution, with a different quantity structure and spatial pattern to satisfy the preference of the different decision makers; (7) the model proposed in this paper is capable of handling the land-use zoning problem, and the crossover and mutation operator can improve the performance of the model, but, nevertheless, leads to increased time consumption.

Highlights

Land-use zoning and regulation, which originated in the late 19th century and was ubiquitous in most major US cities from the 1920s, is an effective measure for optimizing the allocation of land resources [1,2]and mitigating the negative externalities caused by mixed land use, and has been implemented in many countries and regions [3,4,5]
Where n is the number of land-use patches and c is the number of land-use zones when patch xk belongs to zone Gj, ukj is equal to 1, or otherwise equal to 0. vj is the center of zone Gj that can be calculated by formula vij x1i x2i ... xNi N j, vij is the value of attribute i for the center of zone Gj, xNi is the value of attribute i for patch xN that belongs to zone Gj, Nj is the total number of patches that belongs to zone Gj, and xk v j is the Euclidean distance between patch xk and vj that is given by formula m
The results obtained indicated that the integration of geographic information system (GIS) and MOPSO-CCM is a promising and efficient approach for solving the land-use zoning problem

Summary

Introduction

Land-use zoning and regulation, which originated in the late 19th century and was ubiquitous in most major US cities from the 1920s, is an effective measure for optimizing the allocation of land resources [1,2]and mitigating the negative externalities caused by mixed land use, and has been implemented in many countries and regions [3,4,5]. Xinji County of Hebei Province, as a pilot county, adopted the nation’s first comprehensive zoning ordinance in 1987, but there was no specific legal provision for zoning until 1998 when Article 20 of the China Land Management Law introduced a regulation bringing in CLUP at the county level, which defines the land-use zones and the dominant land use of each zone It can be seen, that the actual implementation of zoning policy occurred later in China, and the methods and laws for zoning and land-use regulation, in line with China’s actual land-use conditions, are still in the process of being explored. The focus of this paper is to construct a rational model serving land-use zoning in China, in view of the fact that zoning is the centerpiece of local planning and land-use regulations [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion