Land use
Land use refers to the use of an area of the earth by humans. Generally, indicating the economic activities taking place on the land, it is divided into forest land, agricultural land, fallow, pasture, etc. In more technical language, land use is defined as "the activities carried out by humans for the creation, alteration or preservation of a particular land cover type".
The matters relating to land use in India come under the 'Department of Land Resources' of 'Ministry of Rural Development' of 'Government of India'. At the same time, the work of surveys related to land use at the national level is done by an organization named 'National Soil Survey and Land Use Planning Bureau' located in Nagpur. Land use maps of different parts of India are published by this organization.
Land use and its changes have a very important impact on the environment and ecology of an area. Issues related to natural resource conservation include issues related to land use conservation: soil erosion and conservation, soil quality enhancement, water quality and availability, vegetation protection, wildlife habitat, etc.
The different categories of rural land use in India are as follows
· Forest
· barren and uncultivable land,
· land used for non-agricultural use,
· cultivable barren,
· permanent pasture and pastoral,
· land under trees and shrubs,
· current fallow,
· other fallow,
· net sown area, and
· Area is sown more than once.
and use policy
For the first time in India, a National Land Use Policy was formulated in 1988 by the efforts of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. By this, the unwanted change in land use was declared illegal. Although most of the states had established land use boards in the seventies itself, the work in them started only after the formulation of the national policy and it is not possible to say how many of them are active in the present times.
The main goals of the land use policy in India were: to conduct a detailed and scientific survey of land use, establish forest cover on 33.3% of the land in accordance with the forest policy, prevent the increase in the area of non-cultivable land, develop barren land and convert it to agriculture. Developing sustainable pastures and increasing cropping intensity.
The National Forest Policy prepared in the year 2013 is an attempt to further these objectives and to regulate and control the increasing competition between different sectors for land resources. According to the new policy, there is a plan to divide the country into six zones on the basis of the main land uses. These six zones are rural and agricultural areas, areas undergoing transformation (such as urban fringes), urban areas, industrial areas, ecological and disaster-prone areas. For each type of area, different organizing methods will be used to suit different local needs. It also includes a plan to make land-use change irreversible in areas of agricultural and ecological sensitivity. This policy is also important due to the ongoing land acquisition disputes at present.
Urbanization
Urbanization is one of the most important events of the last century and the present period, which has led to massive changes in land use on a global scale. A city is a center of highly concentrated energy use in a very narrow area and is dependent on its surrounding area for many of its needs, so the impact of urbanization on land use does not only affect the area that is located in the city. but also there are extensive land-use changes in the posterior region of the city.
Urbanization and land-use changes are also collectively seen as the most important factors of climate change, but which of these affects how much is a bit difficult to measure.
Written By:
Anjali Kumari
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