Indian Journal of Economics and Development

An analysis of structural changes in the land use pattern over a period of time provides scope for planned and judicious management of land. Keeping this in view, an attempt is made in this study to analyze the temporal and spatial changes in land use categories. The present study was based on the secondary data on land use for the period from 1970–71 to 2014–15, collected from various published sources. The results envisaged that the increase in the net area sown was observed at Gujarat state as well as at aggregate level of India, but the increase in case of Gujarat was as high as 4.66 percent while it was only 0.28 percent at national level. Markov chain analysis revealed that at the national level, during Overall Period, net area sown was a major gainer among the different land use categories with the gain of 48.10, 25.20 and 12.20 percent from fallow land, land not available for cultivation and other uncultivable land excluding fallow land, respectively. In Gujarat state also, during all the three periods, net area sown was a major gainer among the different land use categories with the gain of 53.00, 20.90 and 19.20 percent from fallow land, land not available for cultivation and forest, respectively. The projected land use dynamics of Gujarat implying that the land use categories viz; forest, land not available for cultivation and other uncultivable land except fallow land are likely to lose their area in coming years whereas the net area sown is likely to remain same or very marginally increase in the future in Gujarat state as a whole.