For instance, more than 11,535 square kilometers of land, accounting for 33.5 percent of the province's total land area, and another 35.1 percent of the offshore water areas have been drawn within the control lines to ensure ecological protection.

The plan also clarified the usage and ownership of about 721,000 pieces of land that were overlapped in usage based on plans drafted by different government departments.

"By implementing integrated and comprehensive planning, we hope to realize a win-win situation in both ecological environmental protection and social and economic development," said Liu Cigui, Hainan's Party secretary.

Shen Xiaoming, Hainan's governor, said the reform will help form a model of more reasonable resources distribution, which used to be decided by local leadership but now has the market playing a more decisive role.

"Under the general plan, commercial real estate projects are no longer allowed in the core ecological areas of the province, including cities and counties of Baisha, Wuzhishan and Baoting," said Ding Shijiang, director of the Hainan Provincial Planning Commission.

Deng Xiaogang, director of Hainan's provincial ecological environment protection department, said multi-planning has left Hainan's ecological environment under pressure.

The reform is also bringing benefits to Hainan's 12 pillar industries, including tourism, tropical feature high-efficiency agriculture, internet, medical tourism, exhibition and modern logistics, which created a total annual output value of 329.1 billion yuan last year, a growth of 10.1 percent year-on-year accounting for 73.7 percent of the provincial GDP, according to data from the provincial government.

Integrated planning will help Hainan better explore its three major advantages: its unique ecological environment, its role as country's only provincial special economic zone and its development as an international tourism destination, Liu, the Party secretary, said.