Optimizing County-Level Land-Use Structure Method: Case Study of W County, China

Planning has a direct impact on the formation of China’s land-use structure. In order to better play its role, China has proposed Multiple Planning Integration. As a part of reform for promoting ecological progress, it should have the concept of ecological progress, as well as the formation of land-use structure. Based on these, we focused on China’s land at the county level and developed a method to optimize its land-use structure catering to Multiple Planning Integration and ecological progress, using W County as a case study. This method mainly comprises three parts: calculating the demand area; calculating the carrying capacity; and optimizing the land-use structure. Models are constructed based on the ecological footprint theory. We found that setting unified targets as the link to integrating plans can effectively form the optimal land-use structure at county-level in the manner of “targets set—area determined”. There are three ways to integrate the concept of ecological progress into the optimization process. First, unified targets should be set for both ecological protection and socio-economic development, and priority should be given to the implementation of ecological protection; that is, in the process of optimization, the land area for the ecological redline of a county needs to be initially determined. Second, when optimizing the land-use structure, we should consider the carrying capacity of county-level land, in relation to demand related to the implementation of socio-economic development. Third, ecological balance should be ensured by comparing demands and the carrying capacities and maximizing the ecological service values of the land, which are important principles for determining the land-use structure. Our research provides a reference for optimizing land-use structure at the county level in China.