Lanzhou Municipal Natural Resources Bureau

The Lanzhou Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources is the department responsible for overseeing the city's natural resources affairs under the municipal government. Its principal responsibilities are as follows:

(1) Exercising the duties of the owner of natural resource assets, including land, minerals, forests, grasslands, wetlands, water, and other resources owned by the people, as well as exercising control over the use of all territorial space. Drafting local regulations and municipal government rules concerning natural resources, territorial space planning, and surveying and mapping, and supervising and inspecting their implementation.

(2) Overseeing natural resource surveys, monitoring and evaluation across the city. Establishing a unified and standardised system for natural resource surveys, monitoring and evaluation in accordance with the relevant indicator framework and statistical standards. Conducting fundamental surveys, specialised investigations and monitoring of natural resources. Managing the supervision and release of survey, monitoring and evaluation outcomes. Providing guidance on natural resource surveys, monitoring and evaluation throughout the city.

(iii) Overseeing unified registration of natural resource rights across the city. Implementing national systems, standards, and norms for unified registration of various natural resources and immovable property rights, cadastral surveys, immovable property surveying, dispute resolution, and application of outcomes. Establishing and improving the city's foundational information management platform for natural resource and immovable property registration. Managing the collection, collation, sharing, and submission of natural resource and immovable property registration data. Guiding and supervising natural resource and immovable property rights registration citywide.

(iv) Oversee the paid use of natural resource assets citywide. Implement the national statistical system for state-owned natural resource assets, conduct accounting for such assets, compile the state-owned natural resource asset balance sheet, and formulate assessment criteria. Implement national policies on the allocation, transfer, leasing, valuation-based capital contribution, disposal, and land reserve of state-owned natural resource assets, ensuring their rational allocation. Manage the valuation of natural resource assets and collect relevant asset revenues in accordance with the law.

(v) Oversee the rational development and utilisation of natural resources across the city. Organise the formulation of natural resource development plans, implement standards for resource development and utilisation, establish a government-published natural resource pricing system, conduct graded valuation assessments of natural resources, evaluate resource utilisation performance, and guide conservation and intensive use. Regulate the natural resource market. Research policy measures concerning macro-control, regional coordination, and integrated urban-rural development within natural resource management.

(vi) Oversee the establishment and implementation of the city's territorial spatial planning system. Advance the main functional zones strategy and system; organise the compilation and supervision of territorial spatial plans, specialised plans, control detailed plans, and urban designs; coordinate integration with other specialised plans. Conduct territorial spatial development suitability assessments and establish monitoring, evaluation, and early warning systems for plan implementation. Organise the delineation of control lines including ecological protection red lines, permanently protected farmland, and urban development boundaries to establish resource-conserving and environmentally protective spatial layouts for production, living, and ecological zones. Establish and improve the land use control system, implement urban and rural planning policies, and oversee their execution. Organise the formulation and implementation of annual utilisation plans for land and other natural resources. Oversee land use conversion and other spatial use adjustments. Manage land expropriation and requisition.

(vii) Oversee the city-wide ecological restoration of territorial space. Lead the formulation and implementation of territorial space ecological restoration plans and major ecological restoration projects. Manage comprehensive territorial space remediation, land consolidation and reclamation, and mine geological environment restoration. Lead the establishment and implementation of ecological protection compensation mechanisms, formulate and implement policies for rational use of social capital in ecological restoration, and establish a project repository for territorial space ecological restoration.

(8) Responsible for organising the implementation of the most stringent farmland protection system across the city. Implements farmland protection policies and safeguards the quantity, quality, and ecological integrity of farmland. Organises the assessment of farmland protection responsibility targets and the special protection of permanently protected basic farmland. Ensures the implementation of the farmland occupation compensation system and supervises the execution of farmland occupation compensation mechanisms.

(IX) Oversee all geological survey-related work across the city. Organise and implement citywide geological surveys and mineral resource exploration, manage municipal-level geological survey projects, oversee geological hazard prevention and remediation, and supervise issues such as excessive groundwater extraction and resulting ground subsidence. Administer the supervision of palaeontological fossils.

(X) Implement requirements under the comprehensive disaster prevention and mitigation plan, organise the formulation of geological hazard prevention plans and protection standards, and oversee their implementation. Organise and implement geological hazard investigations, evaluations, and comprehensive surveys, detailed surveys, and inspections of potential hazards. Guide the implementation of community-based monitoring and prevention, professional monitoring, and early warning systems. Organise and guide the implementation of geological hazard engineering remediation. Provide technical support for geological hazard emergency response and rescue operations.

(11) Responsible for managing mineral resources throughout the city. Oversee mineral land reserves and the management of mineral resources affected by construction projects. Manage mining rights. In conjunction with relevant departments, undertake the regulation and management of specific mineral species and advantageous mineral resources subject to protective mining. Supervise and guide the rational utilisation and protection of mineral resources.

(12) Oversee surveying, mapping, and geographic information management across the city. Manage basic surveying and mapping activities and the surveying industry. Administer surveying qualifications and credit management, oversee geographic information security and market order. Manage public geographic information services. Protect survey markers.

(13) Promotes scientific and technological advancement in the city's natural resources sector. Formulates and implements plans for technological innovation and talent development in natural resources. Organises the implementation of national and local technical standards, procedures, and specifications. Organises the implementation of key scientific and technological projects and innovation capacity building, advancing natural resources informatisation and public services for information resources.

(14) Conducts supervisory inspections, as authorised, of county and township (town) governments' implementation of major policies, decisions, and deployment regarding natural resources and territorial spatial planning, as well as compliance with laws and regulations. Investigate and handle major violations concerning natural resource development and utilisation, surveying and mapping, as well as unlawful construction activities within urban planning zones where a Construction Engineering Planning Permit has been issued. Provide guidance on relevant administrative law enforcement work at county and township levels.

(15) Oversee planning approvals, planning management, post-approval supervision, and oversight for all construction projects within the municipal planning jurisdiction.

(16) Undertake other tasks assigned by the Municipal Party Committee, Municipal Government, and Provincial Department of Natural Resources.

(17) Functional Transformation. The Municipal Natural Resources Bureau shall implement the central government's requirements for exercising unified ownership of natural resources assets belonging to the people, and unified control over land use and ecological protection and restoration. In accordance with central top-level design and the arrangements of provincial and municipal Party committees and governments, it shall leverage the regulatory role of territorial spatial planning to provide scientific guidance for the protection and rational development and utilisation of natural resources. Further strengthen the protection and rational development and utilisation of natural resources, establishing and improving a working mechanism that combines source protection with comprehensive restoration and governance throughout the entire process, to achieve holistic protection, systematic restoration, and integrated management. Innovative institutional measures combining incentives and constraints shall be introduced to advance the economical and intensive utilisation of natural resources. Efforts shall be intensified to streamline and delegate relevant administrative approval matters in accordance with the law, strengthen regulatory oversight, fully leverage the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, enhance the government's role, reinforce the binding effect of natural resource management rules, standards and systems, and promote the efficient and convenient registration and valuation of natural resource rights.