LAUSR

The establishment of multi-planning integration (MPI) and an orderly spatial planning system has been identified as one of the most important issues in China. Since 2014, 28 counties and cities have been selected as typical examples in China to launch MPI pilots. The Hainan Island MPI pilot is the only one that contains coastal waters, which makes it particularly valuable to coastal zone management research. In this paper, we present a qualitative study of the Hainan Island MPI pilot to gain insights into the methodological approaches of the MPI framework that have led to the integration of dozens of diverse planning initiatives in this coastal area, and summarize the significance of advancing integrated coastal zone management. The findings were drawn from comparisons of previous coastal spatial management scenarios, interviews of MPI-related government officials, and an overlay analysis of MPI achievements conducted using ArcGIS. These findings revealed that, as it was conducted in a coastal province, the Hainan Island MPI pilot considered the substantial relationship between the sea and the land, and the MPI advanced the coastal management through the use of several reform measures, including setting up the framework of an overall planning system to unify previous planning conflicts, forming a blueprint to optimize the coastal land and sea conservation and development, establishing a new provincial spatial management agency to instruct all spatial management, strengthening the legislation to guarantee the legal status of MPI, establishing a planning inspection mechanism to contain illegal land and sea use, establishing a comprehensive information platform to make spatial management convenient, and promoting the reform of an administrative approval system to accelerate the examination of coastal activity. Moreover, this study emphasizes the need for an integrated land and marine spatial planning framework to mitigate the conflicts of sectoral management to achieve more efficient coastal management, and MPI could be one option for the same; however, a more integrated planning method should be explored to further reflect the integrity of the coastal resources and environment.