Geography Class 12: Land-Use Categories

Introduction

Land is considered an essential and precious naturally occurring resource. This valuable resource of nature is a vital aspect of life. The land is used to accommodate various crops, a large population that resides on it, buildings, possessions, bridges, dams, forested areas and the wildlife in these forests. It is important to understand how this accommodation functions.

What is Land-Use?

Any type of interference with the land, permanent or temporary, that follows a cyclic pattern is called land-use.

Land-use category is defined as the utilisation of empty, vacant, or underdeveloped land for a visionary purpose at a specific time.

Land-use is considered a social and economic activity where an area having one specific aim of utilisation can be converted into new land for some other purpose of utilisation. The economic value of land, area or region (small or large) depends on its land-use properties.

For example, a nice agriculture-based land next to a busy highway can be transformed into a restaurant, dhaba, a motel, or a place for recreational activities.

Population explosion, demand for increased production of commodities, the establishment of varieties of infrastructural facilities like road networks, airports, layouts, motels, hotels, flyovers, hospitals, bridges and canals force the people to sell their lands or use them for conversions.

Land-use Planning

Land-use planning is a sector of study in geography, animal science, city planning, building designing, forest culture, agricultural purposes and engineering of the environment.

The value of utilisation of land heavily depends on factors based on geography. The quality and kind of land-use varies according to location, water availability, moisture of the soil and  the fertility rate of the soil. Different researchers of various sectors work differently on land-use categories.

Land-Use Categories

Two major land-use categories are:

• Urban Land-Use

• Rural Land-Use

Urban Land-Use Category Examples

Land utilised for institutional, industrial, residential, commercial, transportation, communications, and general utilities, is counted in urban land-use categories.

• Cemetery Land-Use Category

These land-use categories can be spotted as huge primary open grounds located in the vicinity of urban areas. A huge number of driveways, mausoleums, and gravestones also indicate a cemetery. 

Locations with a brushy or grassy ground cover are considered perfect cemetery sites. Large, well-managed, and well-maintained lawns typical in certain residential neighbourhoods, as well as open spaces that are underdeveloped, are examples of lands that satisfy the basic needs of a cemetery. 

Undeveloped, open spaces inside, close to, or connected with metropolitan areas are also included in this category. 

If a distinct recreational land is not underused and undeveloped but managed properly, like the lawns in urban parks, it is also included in this category. Additionally, locations that have been partially built or renovated but are yet to be completed and the continued construction of these sites is not possible due to a default factor, are also mentioned in this category.

Small churches, towns, and substantial private family properties also have cemeteries that cannot be recognized and use up a significant portion of the land.

Rural Land-Use Category Examples

• Agricultural Land-Use Categories

All ecosystems altered or created by humans to cultivate or raise biological items for human and animal consumption or use come under this category. Croplands, grasslands, orchards, groves, vineyards, nurseries, decorative horticultural zones, and limited feeding areas are some examples.

Agricultural land-use categories also include temporary pastures, different grazing regions, land under miscellaneous tree crops, cultivable waste, fallow, and land that does not come under ‘current area sown’ but is still utilised for some sort of agricultural function.

• Land used for Feeding Purposes

This includes man-made ecosystems that have been altered or built to serve as huge, specialised livestock production companies with vast animal populations constrained to relatively narrow regions. Beef cattle feedlots, restricted dairy operations, big poultry farms, and hog feedlots are some examples.

• Pastures and Croplands

 This comprises reaped cropland, cultivated season and idle cropland, crop failure land, cropland in-ground grasses and legumes, and cropland used exclusively for grazing in crop rotation.

• Vineyards and Orchards

Orchards, vineyards, nurseries groves, and decorative horticulture zones are examples of this category. Floricultural, seed-and-sod sites and certain greenhouses are included in tree nurseries that offer seedlings for forest lands.

• Other Use of Land for Agricultural Purposes

This includes those ecosystems that are changed or produced by humans to generate food and fibres but do not fit into the other agricultural land types. Farmsteads, animal holdings, corrals, breeding, training camps on horse farms, ditches and canals, small pond farms, farm lanes and roads, are some examples.

Conclusion

Land-use and management techniques significantly influence natural resources such as water, soil, nutrients, plants, and animals. Land-use data may provide solutions for environmental management challenges, including saltiness and water quality.

Vegetation cover, like forest cover, is typically the most environmentally friendly land use, with higher infiltration and lower runoff rates. Urbanised environments, where substantial surface areas are impermeable and pipes and sewage networks supplement natural pathways, are the opposites of forest cover. 

Impermeable surfaces in urban areas impede penetration and can reduce groundwater recharge. Furthermore, urban runoff leads to low water quality.

Therefore, it is important to study land-use and land-use categories in detail so that such serious issues can be identified and dealt with efficiently.