How Sustainable is Chinese Urbanisation? A Study on Guangdong Province Based on the ESPON SUPER Project

Applying knowledge from the ESPON SUPER project, this study explores the sustainability of urbanisation and land use in China and provides recommendations for achieving sustainable urbanisation. The study finds that China's land use dynamics show distinct regional characteristics, with high urbanisation rates and urban land concentration in the eastern coastal regions, and lower levels of urbanisation in the western regions, which are mainly driven by the level of economic development and population migration. In terms of spatial planning, China has shifted from scattered planning to ‘multi-planning integration’, improving the efficiency of the decision-making process. In addition, with the establishment of a territorial spatial planning system, sustainable land use objectives and guidelines have been set, which have facilitated sustainable land use practices in China. Through a case study of Guangdong Province, this study analyses China's land use practices and policy orientations in detail, and in response to the identified challenges, a series of interventions were selected from the SUPER project’s land use intervention database.