BEIJING -- A strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has been initiated for China's central regions, a major breadbasket, in a bid to balance economic development and environmental protection.

The move is intended to integrate ecological ideas into central China's urbanization and bring about a proper layout of development projects, said Wu Xiaoqing, vice minister of environmental protection, at a launch event held on Thursday.

He said the central regions are facing conflicts between the scale of urban development and environmental needs and between development of key areas or water basins and local ecological security.

The SEA entails research on the law and methods that are used to govern or ensure food security, safety of water basin ecology, and safety of human settlement, according to the official.

Under the government's definition, China's central regions are classed as the six provinces of Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan.

The regions achieved notable progress in economic development after the government initiated a national support strategy in 2009, but they also face a number of problems preventing their long-term development.