Abstract: Determining design elevation and calculating earthwork are one of the main tasks in planning and design of land consolidation projects, which is of great significance to land planning and design, the control of total investment and allocating fund. In this study, a new method for optimizing design elevation and calculating earthwork using genetic algorithm based on Digital Elevation Model(DEM) was introduced. Three different calculating examples were taken as cases to validate the method, and the results showed that the method was feasible and effective.