Infrastructure of standard system for land use engineering in China

Abstract: Land use contradictions between economic development, food security and ecological protection are becoming more and more prominent with the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization in China. Land use engineering is an important support to alleviate land use contradictions. Chinese policy-makers have recognized the important role of land-use engineering on land use contradictions. The central government budget invested in land use engineering increases gradually. Standardization is of great significance to promote land use engineering practice. However, standardization level of land use engineering is still very low. The number of standards is rare. There are only 26 standards related to land use engineering. It is far from the needs of land-use engineering practices. Land use engineering standard system, the blueprint for constructing and revising standards, has not yet been built. For this reason, land use engineering and its standard system connotation were initially expounded in this paper according to specific characteristics of land use engineering and standard system. Then, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect the current situation and the demand of the land use engineering standard, and the suggestion of standard system. Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xining, Wuxi, Harbin, Sichuan were selected to implement the investigation. Numerous proposals on standard system and current standards were collected from different land experts and front-line land workers. The characteristics of the current situation and the demand of the land use engineering standard were analyzed for the construction of the standard system. Based on the basic principles for building land use engineering standard system and the work flow drawn out from a large number of land use engineering practices in different regions, Systems Engineering proposed by Hall was applied to put forward preliminary framework of land use engineering standard system from 3 dimensions, including specialized categories (comprehensive renovation, land development, land consolidation, land reclamation and land protection), specialized sequences (integration, investigation, appraisal, plan, construction, engineering and technology, materials and equipment, and management) and standard levels (basis standards, common standards, specialized standards). Specialized categories are divided by land use target and objects. Comprehensive renovation is systems engineering containing the remediation of paddy, water ditch, road, forest and village; land development changes the structures of land function bodies; land consolidation adjusts the structures of land function bodies; land reclamation recovers land function bodies; and land protection protects land function bodies. Specialized sequences are the independent technology processes or technical methods that are significantly different from other professional activities, which contain 5 first-stage classifications and 35 second-stage classifications. Standard levels are distinguished by the scope of application. Generally speaking, the number of basis standards is the least and specialized standards are the most. The hierarchical structure of the standard reflects the inner link between the standards. The upper standards limit the lower standards. Land use engineering standard system is different from the existing land resources standard system developed by China's Ministry of Land and Resources in objects, purposes and methods. Land use engineering standard system includes both existing standards and demand standards. In this paper, land use engineering standard system table including 49 demand standards is constructed and it may provide reference to make the long-term plan or annual plan for land use engineering standards. The established standard system is significant to promote standardization of land use engineering.