After reading this article you will learn about the land use pattern in India.
Land use pattern has undergone tremendous transformations due to the impact of urbanization and industrialization. Changes in the land use pattern bring associated ecological changes. Therefore, at the outset, it is important to give an overview of land use pattern. In India, out of the total Geographical area of 329 M ha, only 305 M ha is the reporting area in 1993/94 (the rest being un-administered for various reasons).
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Table 1: brings out the changes in land use pattern from 1950/ 51 to 1993/94 for the six categories. Area under Agriculture emerges as the dominant category with an increase in its share from about 42% in 1950/51 to 47.5% in 1993/94. The next major land use category for India is Forests which accounted for 22% in 1993/94 and was 8% higher as compared to 1950/51.
The only other category to register an increase in its percentage share includes area under non-agricultural use although the increase is quite modest from 3% to 7%. In addition, barren and un-culturable land, fallow and other uncultivated land have recorded a decline in percentage terms over the time period 1950/51 to 1993/94.
Technically and conceptually ‘soil’ and ‘land’ are different and can be understood well from the definition of ‘land’ by Purnell (1984) as, “an area of earth surface, the characteristics of which embrace all reasonable stable or predictably cyclic attributes of biosphere vertically above and below this area, including those of atmosphere, the soil and underlying geology, the hydrology, the plants and populations and the results of past and present activity, to the extent that these attributes exert a significant influence on present and future uses of land by man”.
The term land, as employed in land evaluation, land use planning has a wider meaning than just soil. Although the terms ‘soil’ and ‘land’ differ technically from each other, the term ‘soil evaluation’ is widely used as synonym of ‘land evaluation’ probably because of the fact that soil evaluation alone constitutes the lion’s share in the land evaluation schemes.
Land:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Of all our resources, land is the most tangible one. Land, by definition, is the solid part of the earth’s surface. It is a finite resource, so great care should be taken to preserve it. Land has been put to many new uses, apart from traditional ones.
These are the general uses of land:
1. Agriculture and horticulture
2. Housing
ADVERTISEMENTS:
3. Laying of roads and railway lines
4. Industries
5. Mining of mineral resources
6. A container for holding water
ADVERTISEMENTS:
7. For fodder, cattle grazing, forest wealth for timber, fuel, etc. The above flow gives an over-view of India’s land classification.
The total area of the country is 329 million hectares. Of these 266 million hectares are available for potential use. But in reality, the land has been subjected to varying degrees of degradation.
As per the sixth plan document, out of 266 mha. available for potential use, 175 mha. are degraded due to one or more of the reasons mentioned below:
1. Land suffering from serious water and wind erosion – 150 mha.
2. Land affected by Salinity & alkalinity – 7 mha.
3. Land affected by water-logging – 6 mha.
4. Land affected by shifting cultivation – 3 mha.
5. Land affected by miscellaneous factors – 9 mha.
Land Use:
Land is a distinctly limited resource and one which is central to all human kind’s needs and activities. Land provides the base for three fourth of our food, all our timber and all our natural fibres. It provides the space for homes, stores, offices, factories, schools, hospitals and other facilities that make up cities, towns and villages.
Land is an area of the earth’s surface, the characteristics of which embrace all reasonably stable or predictable cycle, attribute of the biosphere, the soil and underlying geology, the hydrology, the plant and animal populations, the results of past and present human activities, to the extent that these attributes exert a significant influence on present and future uses of the land by man. With land defined in the above way, land use becomes a very comprehensive concept.
If consideration is limited to terrestrial conditions, it embraces land use in all its forms from agricultural uses to nature conservation in addition to all kinds of urban and industrial land uses. To be precise it can be stated that land use refers to the ‘expression of management of Eco-systems in order to produce some of his needs’.
As population and affluence grow, we need more land for all the uses mentioned. But since one land cannot grow except at the expense of another, there is inevitable conflict between those desiring the same land for different purposes and especially when the choice is between use and preservation.
Land-Use Statistics:
Out of the total geographical area of 328 million hectares, the land-use statistics are available for roughly 306 million hectares, constituting 93 per-cent of the total. During 1970-71 the latest year for which the land-use data are available, the arable land (the net area sown plus the current & fallow lands) was estimated at 161.3 million hectares or 52.7 per-cent of the total reporting area. Around 65.9 million hectares or 21.6 per-cent of the total area was under forests.
Land put to non-agricultural uses was estimated at 16.1 million hectares (5.2 per-cent of the total) and the barren and un-culturable land at 30.2 million hectares or 9.9 per-cent of the reporting area.
Permanent pastures & other grazing land were estimated at 13 million hectares (4.2 per-cent), land under miscellaneous tree crops and groves, not included in the net area sown, at 4.3 million hectares (1.4 per-cent) and the culturable waste-land at another 15.2 million hectares or 5 per-cent. These figures add up to 306 million hectares of the reporting area.
The area, for which data on the land-use classification are available, is known as the ‘reporting area’. In areas where the land- use classification figures are based on land records, the reporting area is the area according to village papers or records maintained by the village revenue agency and the data are based on a complete enumeration of all the areas.
In some cases, village papers are not maintained; but the estimates of the area under different classes of land are based on the sample survey or other methods to complete the coverage. The reporting area is the aggregate of the areas based on these two methods. The areas for which no statistics are available is called ‘non-reporting area’.
The whole of the reporting area is neither completely surveyed cadastrally nor completely covered by complete enumeration of sample surveys. There are still pockets of areas in a few states for which only ‘ad-hoc estimates’ are prepared.
Of the total geographical area, only 80.7 per-cent is cadastrally surveyed. Of the cadastrally surveyed areas, 91.4 per-cent has a permanent reporting agency, whereas 8.6 per-cent has no reporting agency.
