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Impact Asessment of
Irrigation on Landuse Pattern in Humid Southern Plain Zone of Rajasthan (A
Geographical Study of Banswara District) |
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| Paper Id :
18754 Submission Date :
2024-01-08 Acceptance Date :
2024-01-14 Publication Date :
2024-01-23
This is an open-access research paper/article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.10934674 For verification of this paper, please visit on
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| Abstract |
Landuse is the use actually made of any parcel of land, house, industrial location etc. are landuse categories, whereas term residential, industrial, agricultural refers to land utilization and it mainly deals with the problems related to society and the region as a whole. Land utilization is a dynamic concept since it undergoes certain changes due to change in socio-economic conditions, needs and with the adoption of innovation. Therefore, study of landuse is a subject of continuous interest. The study of landuse is important not only in agriculturally dominated and over populated developing areas, but also because of its relationship with different human phenomena. Its importance has also increased due to population pressure, decrease in man-land ratio, and increasing demand for food and raw materials. The need for optimum utilization of land in an integrated manner has assumed a greater relevance. Therefore, scientific and proper use of every parcel of land has become essential. |
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| Keywords | Landuse, Socio-economic Conditions, Optimum Utilization of Land and Technological Changes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Introduction | Land's planning on micro level, based on landuse surveys is the first step in putting our lands to the maximum use. The nature and intensity of landuse is closely related to the technology adopted by man. Extension of agricultural land with the help of technology may cause considerable changes in landuse. Geography deals with the spatial relationship between these aspects and planning. The demands for new uses of land may be inspired by a technological change or by a change in the size, composition and requirements of a community. |
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| Objective of study | The objective of this paper is to study the impact of Irrigation on landuse pattern in humid Southern Plain
Zone of Rajasthan in special reference to Banswara District. |
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| Review of Literature | Land is a delineable area of the earth's terrestrial surface, encompassing all attributes of the biosphere immediately above or below this surface, including those of the near surface - terrain, climate, soils, groundwater, rock formation, plants, animal population, human settlement pattern, infrastructure and human activities (FAO 1995, 6). It is the stage on which all human activities are being conducted and the sources of the materials needed for this conduct. Human use of land resources give rise to ‘landuse’ which varies with the purposes it serves, whether they be food production, provision of shelter, extraction and processing of materials, and so on, as well as the bio-physical characteristics of land itself. It is the way in which and the purpose for which, human being employ the land and its resources (Meyer et al. 1995, 20). Landuse itself is the human employment of a land-cover type, the means by which human activity appropriates the result of net primary production (NPP) as determined by a complex of socio-economic factors (Skole 1994, 438). Till 1949-50, the land area in India was classified into five categories known as the five-fold land utilization classification. Those categories are - 1. Forest, 2. Area not available for cultivation, 3. Other cultivated land, excluding the current fallows, 4. Area under current fallows, and 5. Net sown area. This five-fold land utilization classification was, however, a very broad outline of landuse in the country and was not found adequate enough to meet the needs of agriculture planning in the country. The States were also finding it difficult to present comparable data according to this classification, owing to the lack of uniformity in the definition and scope of classification, covered by these five broad categories. To remove the non-comparability and to break up the broad categories into smaller constituents for better comprehension, the Technical Committee on Coordination of Agricultural Statistics, set up in 1948 by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, recommended a nine-fold landuse classification replacing the old five-fold classification. The nine-fold classification is as follows - 1. Area under forests, 2. Barren and uncultivable land, 3. Land put to non agricultural uses, 4. Permanent pastures and other grazing lands, 5. Cultivable wastes, 6. Miscellaneous tree crops and grove not included in the net area sown, 7. Current fallows, 8. Fallows other than current fallows, and 9. Net area sown. |
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| Analysis | Study Area Banswara district is situated in the southern most part of the Rajasthan state and lies between 23011′ to 23056′ N latitudes and 730 58′ to 740 49′ E longitudes. It is surrounded by Pratapgarh district in the north, Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh in the east, Sagwara and Aspur tehsils of Dungarpur district in the west and Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh in the south. The district also touches boundary of Panchamahal district of Gujarat in the south-west. The Vagad Region represents a rugged terrain undulated by short ridges in west of Banswara while the eastern part is occupied by flat-topped hills of the Deccan Trap. It also has the southern end of the Aravalli Mountains. The district occupies prominent place in the Agro-climatic Zone-IV B, i.e., Humid Southern Plain Zone of Rajasthan comprising 8 Sub- Divisions, 12 Tehsils and 8 Panchayat Samities. The total geographical area of the district is 453,612 ha, accounting 1.31 per cent of the total area of the Rajasthan State. The total Gram Panchayats and Revenue Villages in the district are 346 and 1532, respectively. The total population of the district is 22.80 lakh with population density of 399 as against 201 in the State. Out of this, more than 75 percent population belongs to scheduled tribe category and 92.88 per cent population is living in villages. The literacy rate is 57.20 per cent. The 61.77 per cent farm families of the district belongs to marginal category followed by 20.56 per cent small, 12.65 per cent semi-medium, 4.68 per cent medium and only 0.34 per cent in the large farmer’s category. The agro-climatic conditions of the district are sub-humid and sub-tropical climate with mean daily minimum temperature varies from 11.80C in January to 260C in June.Likewise, the mean daily maximum temperature ranges from 21.80C in January to 43.80C in May. The average annual rainfall is about 82.59 cm. The district has mainly red and clay loam soil.In the district, three agro- ecological situations exists viz., (i) Sandy loam soil, medium rainfall and medium elevation (ii) Medium black soil, high rainfall and medium elevation, and (iii) Medium black soil, high rainfall and high elevation. Out of 4.53 lakh ha geographical area, 0.84 lakh ha is under forest, 2.84 lakhha net cultivated area, 3.96 lakh ha gross cultivated area and 0.09 lakh ha pasture land. The area under irrigation is 1.47 lakh ha comparising 51.29 per cent of the net sown area. The main irrigation sources are canals, wells and tube-wells. The River Mahi is the important source of canal irrigation by covering an area of 64,503 ha (60.28 per cent).
Irrigation Facilities The district is drained by Mahi River and its tributaries namely Anas, Haran and Chap in which Mahi and Anas are the only perennial rivers. River Mahi enters the eastern part of the district south of village Ambapara flows in the northerly direction. It takes sudden westerly turn near Sarodia. At Dhalwara, it takes a south westerly course, flowing along the boundary between Banswara and Dungarpur districts before entering the Gujarat state. The soils of the district fall under two broad categories- Black soil and Red soil. Black soil is found predominantly in the district mostly in northern, southern, central and eastern parts. Red soil is mostly found in western portion of the district from north to south. The principal means of irrigation in the district are by canal in all tehsils except Kushalgarh where only groundwater is used for irrigation. Groundwater is utilized through dug-wells, DCB’s, and tube wells. Canal irrigation is mostly by Mahi dam project. Tanks also form an important source of irrigation in the district. The source-wise irrigated area (2019-20) is furnished in Table 1. Table 1: Source-wise Irrigated Area Banswara District (Area in Ha)
Source: District Abstract, Directorate of Economics & Statistics, GoR, Jaipur |
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| Findings |
In the study area; the sample households (250) responded as maize, rice, blackgram, soybean and cotton are the predominentkharif crops; while wheat, gram and rabi maize are major rabi crops. In Zaid,greengram cultivation is also a common practice. Cereal crops-maize, wheat and rice constitute 74.62 per cent of gross cultivated area followed by pulses (blackgram, pigeon pea, gram and greengram) 16.13per cent and oilseeds 6.23per cent (soyabean). The fertilizer consumption in the district is 121.4 kg/ha. The common crop sequences are maize, rice, soyabea, cotton-fallow, kharif pulses-fallow, kharif pulses- gram under rainfed condition, whereas, maize, rice, cotton, soybean-wheat, gram, soybean-gram, wheat-summer greengram and soybean-rabi maize under irrigated conditions. The productivity of maize, cotton and rice are higher as compared to state average. Due to continuous efforts of State and Central Governments, social workers and NGOs for transfer of technologies, the agriculture scenario of district is diversifying. At present, the district has diversified agriculture scenario with number of field crops, vegetables, spices, medicinal crops, orchards and flowers. The total area under orchards (mango,guava and lime) and vegetables is more than 4000 ha. Presently, seed replacement rate in maize is 67per cent, cotton 100per cent, kharif pulses 32per cent, soybean 67per cent, wheat 26per cent, rabi maize 97per cent and in gram it is 13per cent. Due to diversification in agriculture chemical pesticides are gaining undue importance in the district, especially in cash crops like vegetables, soybean and cotton by large farmers. The use of machineries like tractors, threshers, harvestors and ferti-drills is increasing rapidly as use of mechanical power is becoming indispensible due to labour problem in agriculture. The district is inhabited predominantly by scheduled tribes and having very poor and miserable socio-economic status owing to age-old cultivation practices. A wide variation in the rainfall, soil characteristics and cropping pattern are found in the district. Though, some signs of development- roads, schools, colleges, medical facilities, electricity supply, modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture, irrigation facilities, banking and commercial activities, mining etc. are seen in the study area. The major constraints in agriculture are: 1. Majority of farmers are marginal (61.77 per cent) and small (20.56 per cent), 2. Agriculture is mainly rainfed, 3. Dominance of low value and low demand crops, 4. Poor market support and non-availability of credit, 5. Poor livestock productivity, 6. Low productivity of oilseeds and pulses, and 7. Lack of processing industries. |
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| Conclusion |
In the study area, cropping
pattern and cropping intensity have changed. The constant rise in population,
urbanization, industrialization and agricultural growth has caused decrease in
per capita availability of water. |
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| Suggestions for the future Study | 1. Groundwater draft is very high in all the blocks. Stage of ground water development in the district has reached 50.70 per cent due to indiscriminate use. It has to be controlled by preventing further development. 2. Revival of traditional ground water storage system i.e. Baori, open wells, Tanka etc for rainwater conservation for use in day to day life will reduce ground water draft. 3. Awareness programme and training on rainwater harvesting will be beneficial to check decline in water level and justified use. 4. Modern agricultural management techniques will have to be adopted for effective and optimum utilization of the water resources. Maintaining irrigation through minimum pumping hours as per minimum requirement of water by the crop and also selecting most suitable cost effective cropping pattern can achieve this. 5. Surface runoff can be harnessed by constructing tanks at feasible sites in the area occupied by the hard rock terrain for supplementing irrigation potential to increase the agricultural production. 6. High water requirement crops should be discouraged. Proper agriculture extension services should be provided to the farmers so that they can go for alternate low water requirement economical crops. |
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