Analyze the major drivers of human-induced land-use changes in India and their geographical consequences.

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Population pressure, agricultural intensification, urban sprawl, infrastructure, mining and plantation economics drive land-use change in India, causing floods, landslides, degradation and habitat loss. ISRO's atlas (2021) found about 29.7% of India's land degraded in 2018-19.

**Introduction**

ISRO's Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas (2021) found about 29.7% of India's land degraded in 2018-19, largely the footprint of human choices about land use. With nearly 18% of the world's people on 2.4% of its area, the pressure is intense.

**Human Drivers of Land-Use Change**

1. **Agricultural intensification**: Population pressure pushed cultivation onto forest margins, and coastal Andhra Pradesh turned paddy fields into aquaculture ponds.
2. **Urban sprawl**: Land under non-agricultural uses has nearly tripled since 1950-51, eating fertile peri-urban farmland.
3. **Infrastructure and mining**: Expressways, coal mining in Jharia and Hasdeo Arand, and solar parks such as Bhadla claim forests and topsoil.
4. **Policy and markets**: Oil palm (NMEO-OP, 2021) and rubber plantations replace natural forest with monocultures.

**Geographical Consequences of the Change**

FIGURE: map-geography-p32-0 | Land degradation in India: the end result of human-induced land-use change

1. **Hydrological disruption**: Encroached lakes and paved catchments produced urban floods in Chennai (2015) and Bengaluru (2022).
2. **Slope instability**: Unplanned construction amplified the Joshimath subsidence (2023) and the Wayanad landslides (2024).
3. **Habitat fragmentation**: Cultivation, roads and mines cut elephant corridors, fuelling human-elephant conflict in Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam.
4. **Human costs**: Loss of prime farmland strains food security, and mining displaces tribal communities in Central India.

**Way Forward**

1. **Zoning and restoration**: Map and protect prime farmland, wetlands and slopes, and restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

**Conclusion**

India's land-use change answers the needs of food, cities and growth, but its costs show up in floods, landslides and degraded soils. Treating land as a finite, mapped resource is the path to land-degradation neutrality.

Analyze the major drivers of human-induced land-use changes in India and their geographical consequences.

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