Environment
Land use planning
The systematic assessment of land potential and needs to allocate land among competing uses — agriculture, settlement, industry, conservation — for present and future generations.
Definition
Land use planning is the systematic assessment of land and water potential, of alternatives for land use, and of economic and social conditions, in order to select and put into practice the land uses that best meet people's needs while safeguarding resources for the future. It operates within the broader discipline of spatial planning and has evolved from expert-led land-suitability analysis towards participatory, multi-stakeholder processes.
References
Metternicht-based definition, evolution to participatory approaches, spatial-planning relationship
Overview
What it means
Because land is finite and demands on it conflict — food, housing, infrastructure, biodiversity, carbon storage — planning provides the public process and legal instruments (zoning, subdivision, protected-area designation, development approval) through which trade-offs are decided.
Participatory approaches recognise that durable plans require the involvement of local communities and land users, not expert knowledge alone.
How it is used
Governments at all levels use land use plans to guide development and conservation; it is integral to Land Degradation Neutrality target implementation, climate adaptation, urban growth management and indigenous territorial planning.
Why it matters
Land-use decisions are among the most durable sustainability decisions societies make; planning determines whether they are made deliberately and fairly or by default.
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