Dynamics and determinants of land change in India: integrating satellite data with village socioeconomics

We examine the dynamics and spatial determinants of land change in India by integrating decadal land cover maps (1985–1995–2005) from a wall-to-wall analysis of Landsat images with spatiotemporal socioeconomic database for ~630,000 villages in India. We reinforce our results through collective evidence from synthesis of 102 case studies that incorporate field knowledge of the causes of land change in India. We focus on cropland–fallow land conversions, and forest area changes (excludes non-forest tree categories including commercial plantations). We show that cropland to fallow conversions are prominently associated with lack of irrigation and capital, male agricultural labor shortage, and fragmentation of land holdings. We find gross forest loss is substantial and increased from ~23,810 km(2) (1985–1995) to ~25,770 km(2) (1995–2005). The gross forest gain also increased from ~6000 km(2) (1985–1995) to ~7440 km(2) (1995–2005). Overall, India experienced a net decline in forest by ~18,000 km(2) (gross loss–gross gain) consistently during both decades. We show that the major source of forest loss was cropland expansion in areas of low cropland productivity (due to soil degradation and lack of irrigation), followed by industrial development and mining/quarrying activities, and excessive economic dependence of villages on forest resources. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10113-016-1068-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.