by Babra Wani
SRINAGAR: In the last three decades, the Kashmir peasantry has shifted land use. Cultivating rice for generations, they have converted the rice fields into apple orchards.
A group of Kashmir researchers have used satellite imagery to offer an idea about the quantum of shift. In the study Land use land cover change in Kashmir Himalaya: Linking remote sensing with an indicator based DPSIR approach, a group of researchers comprising Rehana Rasool, Abida Fayaz, Mifta ul Shafiq, Harmeet Singh, and Pervez Ahmed have offered an idea about the shift in land use.
The study has traced the net difference in land use for 27 years between 1990 and 2017 in the entire south Kashmir. The study shows that South Kashmir lost five per cent of its farmland. Horticulture however gained 4.29 percent of the land.
The study was carried out in 113 villages and it revealed a significant shift towards fruit cultivation in recent years, leading to a decline in agricultural land.
“The reduction in agricultural land poses a substantial threat to the area’s food security, while the expansion of horticulture brings about detrimental effects on both soil health and long-term productivity, which may adversely impact the region’s overall well-being,” the study reads.
According to the study, agriculture experienced a decline, losing an extensive area of 278 square kilometres (-5 per cent), although it still held the largest share at 19.80 per cent. On the other hand, horticulture witnessed a surge as human-induced land use, escalating from 176 square km (3.2 per cent) in 1990 to 409 square km (7.49 per cent) in 2017, adding an impressive 233 square km of land area to its domain.
The study also highlighted a reduction in the area dedicated to plantations. Over the same study period, the plantation area decreased from 438 square km in 1990 to 301 square km in 2017, indicating a noticeable shift in land utilisation patterns.
The study revealed that agricultural land use decreased from 24.8 per cent in 1990 to 19.80 per cent in 2017. In contrast, horticulture land use showed an increase from 3.2 per cent in 1990 to 7.49 per cent in 2017, with a net positive growth rate of 8.6 per cent per year. The study utilised satellite imagery from 1990, 2002, and 2017, enhancing the images and employing advanced technologies to analyse the changes in land use.
The researchers, interestingly, were from different institutions including the Department of Geography and Regional Development, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Kashmir and Department of Geography, Sri Pratap College, Cluster University Srinagar, MA Road. The study area covered 5454 sq km with a population base of 2.38 million souls as per census 2011. United States Geological Survey (USGS) helped the researchers to freely host the Landsat satellite data.
