On July 25, the municipal government held a meeting about “Yichang Overall Environment Plan” (Year 2013-2030) (“Plan” for short), seeking for opinions of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission and the departments of land, planning, and construction on the requirements of the planning and development of the modern mega-cities construction, in order to provide strategic support for transforming the economic and social development modes, and promoting the construction of new urbanization of the city.
　　Yichang is one of the first groups of 12 national-level pilot cities of the urban overall environment plan. Commissioned by the municipal government, the Academy of Environmental Planning of Ministry of Environmental Protection formed a technical planning group together with China Urban Planning and Design Academy and other institutions, in order to carry out the Plan. The Plan will put forward the overall strategic position of the protection of Yichang ecological environment after researches, assessing the ecosystems, ecological service function and ecological vulnerability of Yichang for ensuring the prior scope of protection. Meanwhile, the city will be Pided into five environmental function areas including ecosystem conservation area, ecological function area, food environment security area, livable environment maintenance area, resources development and environmental protection area, and different areas will have different environmental requirements. In addition, the ecological red line system has been established and the red line control system of Yichang has been Pided for supervising water, air and ecology respectively. Since the launch of the Plan in 2013, the planning group has completed the framework of the Plan after many field researches, and the framework has been approved in May this year in Beijing. The planning group has sought the opinions of the relevant city and county level departments, striving to provide accurate basis for optimizing the industrial structure and spatial layout, promoting the healthy and harmonious development of the city, exploiting the existing resources rationally and carrying out environmental protection. According to the person in charge of the planning group, the Plan will be finalized in October this year, and printed, distributed and implemented by the municipal government after the deliberation and approval of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress. (Reporter: Jingui Guiman, correspondent: Qu Hua, Luo Ji tao)