Author(s): Rong Tan, Rongyu Wang and Thomas Sedlin

Title: Land-Development Off­set Poli­cies in the Quest for Sus­tain­abil­ity: What Can China Learn from Germany?

Year: 2014

Pages: pages 3400–3430.

Pub­li­ca­tion type: open access jour­nal article

Lan­guage: English

Source: http://www.mdpi.com/2071–1050/6/6/3400/htm (full text)

Abstract:

Land-development off­set poli­cies con­sist of mea­sures that require com­pen­sa­tion to be made for the neg­a­tive impact of land devel­op­ment on agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion, eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion, and the sus­tain­abil­ity of eco­nomic and social devel­op­ment. How­ever, when such poli­cies are inap­pro­pri­ately designed, unex­pected prob­lems can result. This paper describes cer­tain land-development off­set poli­cies that have recently been imple­mented in China, with a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on three such poli­cies: the Bal­anc­ing Pol­icy, the Link­age Pol­icy, and the Inte­grated Pol­icy. These well-intentioned envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies have led to unex­pected eco­log­i­cal, social, and cul­tural prob­lems. This paper also describes the core of Ger­man land-development pol­icy, which fea­tures a dis­tinc­tive com­pen­sa­tion sys­tem that has been employed since the 1970s, and com­pares Chi­nese and Ger­man land-development poli­cies to high­light dif­fer­ences in three main areas: pol­icy pur­poses, gov­er­nance struc­tures, and fun­da­men­tal insti­tu­tions. The com­par­isons might help explain the unex­pected out­comes in China, and they also lead to land-development off­set pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions for China in the near future.

land-development off­set; insti­tu­tional com­par­i­son; China; Germany