Today, India still remains a rural agricultural country although the share of urban population has also increased but these figures do not tell the whole story. There are evidences that urban growth is dispersed and urban sprawl promotes the spread of urban land use into the rural-urban fringe. Here the attempt is to investigate the land transformation and the driving forces which were influencing the land transformation. The present study was done on peri urban interface of Aligarh city, a relatively small city, but as other north Indian cities, it is also expanding rapidly. Moreover, it too is surrounded by a populous rural area with productive and rich agricultural hinterland. Such conditions give rise to many conflicts and mutually beneficial complementarities in the rural and urban spheres. The result shows that the demand for land is high which results in informal urban development fulfilling the requirements of many of the city’s residents. Every piece of land is a tradable commodity, and the pursuit of short-term profits is the predominant ethic. The actors in PUI are strong because it is characterized by intermixing of rural and urban activities and interests as well as the number of actors are greater than in any other area. .

This valuable book summarizes recent research by experts from both the natural and social sciences on the effects of population growth on land use. It is a useful introduction to a field in which little quantitative research has been conducted and in which there is a great deal of public controversy. The book includes case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American countries that demonstrate the varied effects of population growth on land use. Several general chapters address the following timely questions: What is meant by land use change? Why are ecological research and population studies so different? What are the implications for sustainable growth in agricultural production? Although much work remains to be done in quantifying the causal connections between demographic and land use changes, this book provides important insights into those connections, and it should stimulate more work in this area.

This book presents recent estimates on the rate of change of major land classes. Aggregated globally, multiple impacts of local land changes are shown to significantly affect central aspects of Earth System functioning. The book offers innovative developments and applications in the fields of modeling and scenario construction. Conclusions are also drawn about the most pressing implications for the design of appropriate intervention policies.

As the world's population exceeds an incredible 6 billion people, governmentsâ€"and scientistsâ€"everywhere are concerned about the prospects for sustainable development. The science academies of the three most populous countries have joined forces in an unprecedented effort to understand the linkage between population growth and land-use change, and its implications for the future. By examining six sites ranging from agricultural to intensely urban to areas in transition, the multinational study panel asks how population growth and consumption directly cause land-use change, and explore the general nature of the forces driving the transformations. Growing Populations, Changing Landscapes explains how disparate government policies with unintended consequences and globalization effects that link local land-use changes to consumption patterns and labor policies in distant countries can be far more influential than simple numerical population increases. Recognizing the importance of these linkages can be a significant step toward more effective environmental management.

Since the 1980s many developing countries have implemented macro-economic policy reforms to curb inflation, reduce fiscal deficits and control foreign debt. The policy instruments used, such as exchange rate adjustment, budget cuts, trade policy reforms, public expenditure reviews and privatisation, have different and sometimes opposite consequences for agricultural land use. During the same period awareness was growing that deteriorating soil quality could become a limiting factor to increase or even sustain agricultural production. As a result, food availability and even accessibility for large population groups in developing countries may be jeopardised in the near future. Recently, quantitative models have made useful contributions to understanding the impact of economic policy reforms on the sustainability of land use. They provide a consistent analytical framework to deal with complex issues such as the direct and indirect effects of economic, agricultural, environmental and population policies, the role of market imperfections in transmitting economic policy signals, and the interactions between soil quality, agricultural production and household economic decision making. Different types of models can be distinguished: bio economic models, focussing on the link between farm household decisions and the agricultural resource base, household and village models, examining the impact of the socio-economic environment on farm household decisions, and more aggregate models, analysing interactions between sectors and their implications for sustainable land use.