Dynamics of Land Use Trends and Patterns in Uttar Pradesh: A Sectoral Perspective

Abstract

Land is a natural resource and is of utmost importance on account of its use for diverse and manifold purposes. However, this finite resource has been experiencing changes in the way it was used earlier, largely because of modifications made by human, affecting the ability of natural systems to support life. The present study is carried out for Uttar Pradesh, one of the states in India. It is the fourth largest in area and interestingly having the largest rural population in the country. Moreover, this Uttar Pradesh has been going through large-scale land use transformations, particularly after economic reforms. Thus, this study made an attempt to understand the dynamics of trends and patterns of land use in Uttar Pradesh, as it is directly or indirectly associated with their living. The study largely focused on three sectors for analysing this status: ecological, agricultural and non-agricultural. It primarily focused on the secondary sources of data, incorporating various government publications from 2000 to 2015. Multiple linear regression technique was executed to examine the scenario of sectoral land use and to find the determinants of land use changes. The findings of this study reveal that the growth rates of different categories of land use have witnessed declining trends except for the area under non-agricultural land use. Whereas enviable ecological sector is passing through a critical phase of land transformation as the area under forest is declining along with pastures and miscellaneous trees. It also points out considerable decrease for net sown area in agricultural sector but increase for current fallow land.