Determining Key Ecological Indicators for Urban Land Consolidation

Urban land consolidation, which is to reform land parcels to remove fragmentation and produce ideal blocks, is an effective means for urban renewal. Successful urban land consolidation brings out great benefits to the city officials as well as general public, such as improved city image, increased land value, and more effective land use. However, urban land consolidation can be detrimental to environment, especially in the ecological aspects, while the execution of land consolidation has been focused solely on development for the sake of human benefits. To remove negative effects of urban land consolidation to the ecological system, this paper is intended to establish a set of criteria for evaluating ecological impacts of an urban land consolidation plan. Firstly, key ecological indicators are identified using a special group decision-making process called "habitual domain analysis" and then individual weighting of each indicator is recorded by analytical hierarchy process. An urban ecological evaluation model with 4 levels and 23 indicators is thus developed.