Land use and land degradation

Land is limited. We live, farm, build roads and run factories on land, and there is only so much of it. India's land is about:

• 43 per cent plains: good for farming and industry;
• 30 per cent mountains: they keep some rivers flowing all year and draw tourists;
• 27 per cent plateaus: rich in minerals, fossil fuels and forests.

How land is used. The book's groups: forests; land not available for farming (barren land, and land used for buildings, roads and factories); other uncultivated land (pastures, tree-crop groves, and culturable waste land, left unfarmed for more than 5 years); and fallow land:

• current fallow: left unfarmed for one year or less;
• other than current fallow: left unfarmed for 1 to 5 years.

Gross cropped area = net sown area + any land sown a second (or third) time.

India's picture. India covers 3.28 million sq km, but we have land-use figures for only 93 per cent of it. Most north-eastern states (all except Assam) have not fully reported their land use, and the parts of Jammu and Kashmir held by Pakistan and China have not been surveyed.

• In 2019-20 the net sown area was about 45.64 per cent and forests about 23.41 per cent (Fig. 1.4).
• Net sown area is over 80 per cent in Punjab and Haryana, but under 10 per cent in Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Forests are still far below the 33 per cent set by the National Forest Policy (1952).

Land degradation: when land gets worse.

• Mining (Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha): forests are cut and pits are left behind.
• Overgrazing (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra): roots of grass hold the soil; when animals eat it bare, the soil is lost.
• Over-irrigation (Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh): the land becomes waterlogged, and this raises salinity and alkalinity in the soil.
• Mineral processing: dust from grinding limestone, calcite and soapstone settles on land and stops water soaking in.
• Industrial waste pollutes land and water.