국토의 효율적 관리를 위한 토지적성 평가에 관한 연구(RR 2001-33) Mie-Oak Chae and Dae-Sic Ji
December 2001․229 pages․Korean
The Korean government enacted a new law, "The National Land Planning and Use Law"
at the end of 2001. It is the fused version of the existing two laws, "National Land Use and Management Law" enacted in 1972 and "Urban Planning Law" enacted in 1962. The new law introduced the Land Suitability Assessment (LSA) System for the first time in Korea in order to coordinate various controversies over land such as conflicts between private ownership and the public nature of land, and between development and conservation. This study aims basically to review the theoretical framework of the LSA and then to devise its conceptual framework for the efficient management of national land.
The study consists of seven chapters. Following the Introduction, Chapter 2 reviews the definition of the LSA. The LSA is to assess the land's physical, locational, economical, and environmental characteristics and then classify it based on its usability.
In Chapter 3, the development of LSA is traced. Its root can be found in the soil type classification system in the 1930s. It assesses not only physical but also socio-economical-ecological characteristics of land. Now, it has become a prerequisite to conduct the LSA prior to land use planning, one of which purposes is to minimize the negative impacts of land use activities. In addition, the importance of LSA is gaining a new recognition as a land use planning tool in terms of sustainable and ecological land use.
Chapter 4 investigates land classification systems in Korea. The Korean land classification systems largely follows the zoning system and the land suitability system.
The former has applied to the National Land Use and Management Law, the Urban Planning Law, the Agricultural Law and the Forest Law, whereas the former to land capability grades, natural vegetation map and natural ecological map. However, the zoning system and the LSA have never been applied with an organic connection to each other until the enactment of The National Land Planning and Use Law in December 2001. The new law stipulates that the LSA should be conducted in every land use planning within the Management Regions.
In other words, a legal base to force the LSA is provided by this law. Thus it is required to provide a framework and standards for the implementation of LSA at the national land management level.
Chapter 5 surveys LSA systems in foreign countries such as U.S., Canada, and Japan.
The Land Capability Classification System in the U.S., which was developed in the 1930s, is used most widely around the world. However it focuses mainly on the productivity of soil based on physical characteristics such as soil type, erosion, etc. So it has limitations to be used for planning. By complementing this problem, the Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) was developed in 1981 as a tool to prevent the conversion of farmland into urban uses. It has been used as a base for land use planning as well. The LESA is composed of two parts: land evaluation (LE) to assess the productivity of soil, and site assessment (SA) to assess the factors responsible for the increase of land use, including neighbouring land use, development pressure, etc.
Therefore, the LESA can be referred to as a comprehensive land suitability assessment
method in which various factors ranging from physical to socio-economic and locational factors are incorporated.
Chapter 6 suggests a framework of and approaching strategies for implementing the LSA system in Korea. A comprehensive LSA is required to guide national land use and conservation. It should be a comprehensive and analytical process in which multiple factors should be considered, including the demand-supply of national land, the distribution of developable capacity, the need for the conservation of national land resources, locational factors, socio-economic factors, and the comparative topology of each city and county in the perspective of national land management. The study suggests that the LSA be carried out in two phases.
The first phase is to define and classify each city and county based on their socio-economic and locational characteristics, for example, highly urbanized area, urbanized area, rural area, urban & rural combined area, and conservative area. This classification will be used as a reference for adjusting the use of national land resources at the macro management level.
The second phase is to carry out the LSA for each parcel of land in physical and socioeconomic terms within the regional boundary in microscopic perspective. It will be used to designate each parcel of land as land for development or land for conservation.
The most important process in conducting the LSA is how to calculate points or weigh each factor. Several techniques are reviewed, including Delphi Technique, Analytic Hierarchical Process, Multi-Criteria Evaluation, and Fuzzy-Sets Theory. It shows that the results collected from Delphi surveys should be calculated again by the Multi-Criteria Evaluation which is a combination of Analytic Hierarchical Process and Fuzzy-Sets Theory.
However it will be a very hard job for local officials to conduct this kind of statistical analysing process. It would be more practical that the central government provides more simplified standards and processes. For this, it is highly recommended to do feasibility study or pilot study before deciding the final guidelines, which will contribute to the simplification of these processes.
In Chapter 7, conclusions and policy recommendations are suggested.
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