LAND RESOURCES: USE FOR PROSPERITY, SAVE FOR POSTERITY

LAND RESOURCES:
USE FOR PROSPERITY, SAVE FOR POSTERITY


The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all.
-Wendell Berry

The most important natural resource, upon which all human activity is based since time immemorial, is land. Land resource is our basic resource. Throughout history, we have drawn most of our sustenance and much of our fuel, clothing and shelter from the land. It is useful to us as a source of food, as a place to live, work and play. It has different roles. It is a productive economic factor in agriculture, forestry, grazing, fishing and mining. It is considered as a foundation of social prestige and is the basis of wealth and political power. It has many physical forms like mountains, hills, plains, lowlands and valleys. It is characterized by climate from hot to cold and from humid to dry. Similarly, land supports many kinds of vegetation. In a wide sense, land includes soil and topography along with their physical features of a given location. It is in this context that land is defined closely with natural environment. However, it is also regarded as space, situation, and factor of production in economic processes.

India is well endowed with cultivable land which has long been a key factor in the country’s socio-economic development. In terms of area, India ranks seventh in the world, while in terms of population it ranks second. With a total area of 328 million hectares, India is one of the big countries. Arable land includes net sown area, current fallow, other fallow and land under trees. Arable land covers a total area of 167 million hectares which is 51% of the total area of the country. However, the land-man ratio is not as favourable as in many other countries like Australia, Canada, Argentina, USA, Chile, Denmark and Mexico.

The physical features in India are diverse and complex. There are mountains, hills, plateaus and plains which produce varied human response to the use of land resources. About 30% of India’s surface area is covered by hills and mountains. They are either too steep or too cold for cultivation. About 25% of this land is topographically usable which is scattered across the country. Plateau constitutes 28% of the total surface area but only a quarter of this is fit for cultivation. The plains cover 43% of the total area and nearly 95% of it is suitable for cultivation. Considering the differences in proportion of surface area, this allows us to conclude that taking the country as a whole, about two-third of it is topographically usable. Moreover, soils, topography, moisture and temperature determine the limits of cultivability and quality of the arable lands. As a consequence, half of the surface area is available for cultivation. This proportion is one of the highest in the world scenario.

Man’s progress towards development has, however, considerably damaged our land resource base, probably since the dawn of civilisation. Out of the total land area, as many as 175 million hectares suffer from degradation. Land degradation is caused largely by soil erosion, but also by water logging and excessive salinity. The most serious threat to the land is posed by deforestation. Heavy rainfall during monsoon damages the soil too. Steep slopes encourage rapid run-off leading to soil erosion, especially on the southern slopes of the Himalaya and the western slopes of the Western Ghats. In fact, major portion of the Himalayas are prone to landslides and erosion. Wind erosion is prevalent in Rajasthan, gully erosion in the Chambal valley, Chotonagpur, Gujrat, Submontane Punjab Himalaya. Water logging and salinization which constitute the second major threat to soil have already claimed 23 million hectares and threatened many more. Land is also degraded due to mining operations in many parts of the country. The total land area is about 80 thousand hectares under mining. Urban encroachment on agricultural land is another burning problem by which the amount of land used for agriculture is readily declining. In other words, there is a tough competition amongst agriculture, urbanisation and industrial development.

The exponentially growing population in the country has placed immense pressure on the dwindling land resources, endangering the very survival of the biome as a whole. The high degree of degradation of existing land resources, the changing climate and increasing diversion of land from agricultural to non-agricultural uses have aggravated the problem. Consequently, the productivity of land has suffered to a great extent, sometimes beyond repair and per capita arable land is also decreasing with the progress of time. India, being a large agrarian society, has, therefore, an enormous task to meet the growing demands for food, fuel, fiber together with environmental security for its people in the coming years.

Land, the marvelous product of nature, without which no life would survive, is now at stake worldwide. The time has come to sustain it for our sustenance and its bridle must be handed over to our future generation, the children, who will unveil the thousands of wonders above and underneath this creamy layer. They will be amazed with the mystery of various branches of sciences in relation to the land mass on which they are growing and playing day to day. It will also be their prime duty to put into action the knowledge and wisdom acquired by their ancestors as regard various land uses.

For the sake of convenience, the whole aspect of land resources have been addressed in detail under six different sub-themes – (i) Know your land, (ii) Functions of land, (iii) Land quality of, (iv) Anthropogenic activities on land, (v) Sustainable use of land resources, and (vi) Community knowledge on land use.
Finally in the words of Feodor Dostoyevsky I too will say to the budding scientists, in particular, “Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love”