Four government bodies are testing a new combined planning regime in 28 locations, in order to improve policy co-ordination. According to hydrologist Dr Chen Wen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, the trials will see multiple plans combined within clearly-defined urban areas, in order to eliminate incompatibilities between individual plans. This new program has the objective to tackle a deep-seated problem of poor co-ordination and wasteful growth, experts show. The new mechanism includes the National Reform and Development Commission’s plans for economic and social development, the Ministry of Land Resources’ planning for land use, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development’s urban-rural plans, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s planning for protection of the environment. These measures will foster positive development of land use and environmental protection in the west of China, the deputy director of Tongji University’s Urban Planning and Design Institute said. Experts stress that the existing poor co-ordination need to be improved. The director of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning has argued that changes are essential for environmental reasons. In the past policies and programs were established without taking into account environmental capacity. The current situation requires considering these factors in order to adapt the plans to these needs. However, some experts have shown some disadvantages of this system, stressing that this plan represents a mechanism for coordination, without the obligation to enforce it. Experts outline that China's eastern coastal provinces have already recorded a period of over-expansion. In relation to that, the country needs to undertake a concrete plan for optimization. Additionally, western China remains less developed suffering from weak management; in this way, the west of China is a passive recipient of this new mechanism. On the other hand, some experts have highlighted that there is still much disagreement over who will provide the framework into which the other plans will be merged. Also, currently the MEP’s environmental protection plans are the weakest, experts say. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Wednesday, 26 November 2014 (Source: ChinaDialogue)