Brown coal planning as a basis for sustainable settlement development

The paper describes the transformation process of the East-German brown coal mining in connection with the reorganization of the power industry after the political change in 1989. The objectives of this transformation process is the reduction of heavy environmental pollution, primarily the reduction of SO2- and airborne particles and past pollutions, as well as the mine reclamation stopping the further degradation of settlements with technical infrastructure. The paper focuses on the elaboration of brown coal mining plans for living and abandoned mining as integral parts of the regional plans in Saxony. The principle of the primary integration of landscape planning into regional planning organizing land use and settlement development will be explained. Based on the Chinese planning system starting points for planning developments in China will be discussed.