Status of land use pattern in Himachal Pradesh

The present study was undertaken with the broad objectives viz. to study the temporal changes in land use and to estimate trends in different land use categories in Himachal Pradesh. For this, secondary data on land use statistics for 45 year’s period from 1974-75 to 2016-17 were collected from different publication of Government of India. For observing decadal changes, the data were grouped under four period viz. period I (1974-75 to 1988-89), period II (1989-90 to 2003-04), period III (2004-05-2016-17) and overall period (1974-75 to 2016-17). The findings of the study showed that the proportion of area under forest has increased from 21.75% in 1974-75 to 29.77% in 1990-91, after that it declined to 24.61% during 2016-17. The proportion of net sown area to the total area has declined from 18.85% in 1974-75 to 11.85% in 2010-11, after that it rises marginally to 12% in 2016-17. It was observed that the area under culturable waste declined by 0.51% and barren land increased by 5.73% whereas, land put to non-agricultural uses increased by 2.38% and net sown area has significantly decreased at the rate of 0.13% per annum during the overall period. It can also be noticed that period III has lowest level of variability in all categories of land compared to periods I and period II. Inter-sectoral land budgeting revealed that area shift were occurring from both desirable and undesirable ecology sectors towards agricultural as well as non-agricultural sectors.