A comparative analysis of issues and challenges with demographic pattern, change in land use planning and environmental degradation in agro-climatic zones of Uttar Pradesh, India

The study deals with the relationship between the increase in the population and its impact on changes in land use patterns and environmental degradation in different agro-climatic regions of Uttar Pradesh. It attempts to examine the impacts of increasing population and changes in land use patterns on the sustainability of agriculture. This research has used secondary data collected from various institutions like government reports, the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), etc., for the period from 1971 to 2021. Methods like ranking, composite indexing, and PCA have been used to analyse the level of land degradation. The results reveal that there has been a rise in the population from 140.23 million in 1991 to 199.58 million in 2011, which is predicted to increase to 220 million by 2021, thereby putting a great deal of strain on the land resource availability. The net sown area decreased by around 10%, from 200.5 to 190.2 lakh hectares, owing to urbanisation and industrialisation. The problem of land degradation is prevalent in the region; for instance, soil erosion occurs in 36.82 lakh hectares of land, waterlogging in 7.30 lakh hectares of land, and salinity in 7.63 lakh hectares of land. Moreover, groundwater exploitation has gone up from 30% in 1987 to 57% in 2021, with a drop in water level from 10.5 m to 16.0 m. However, fertiliser usage has been increased, although there is a reduction in its efficiency due to an imbalance in nutrients.