More Than Thirty Years of Environmentally Sensitive Area Loss in Wuhan: What Lessons Have We Learned from Urban Containment Policy?

Abstract

In an attempt to curb urban land growth and protect environmentally sensitive areas during the urbanization period, urban containment policies in different forms have been implemented over the last three decades at the national and local levels. In this study, we measure the extent of environmentally sensitive area loss in the rural–urban fringe of Wuhan City, where massive urban development has taken place, using 34 years of land use data. Based on this measurement, the effectiveness of the basic farmland zoning policy, which was employed nationwide in the second round of the general land use plan, and a local ecological baseline zoning policy is estimated using three different econometric models. The results indicate that arable land and water bodies are the two main types of environmentally sensitive areas encroached by urban areas. When the spatial dependence was considered, the basic farmland zoning policy is ineffective in shrinking the size of urban land within the boundaries of the basic farmland zone. However, the ecological baseline zoning policy seems to work well for preserving the environmentally sensitive area in the rural–urban fringe area. Several policy implications are offered on the basis of these findings.