Land Use

Abstract

Sri Lanka consist of a land area of 65,525 ha with a population of 21.7 million is ranked 19th in population density representing one of the densely populated countries in the world. Among SARRC countries it is ranked fourth on highest population density. The gross land: man ratio is around 0.32 ha, when only the arable land is considered (excluding water bodies, forest lands, conservational areas and unsuitable terrain) the land: man ratio decreases to 0.14 ha showing the pressure on land resources. According to the Survey Department of Sri Lanka, 35 land use categories are identified but these could be merged into 18 major land use systems. The agricultural lands accounts for 54% of the total land area where the home gardens accounts for 22% with the staple food rice covering 14% and plantation crops covering 11%. The forest lands cover 31% of the total land area. When the changes in major land use types during the years from 1982 to 2000 are considered, there was a decrease of lands occupied by the plantation sector due to land reforms and increase of cost of production but an increase of rice lands as many irrigation settlement projects were introduced. Landlessness is an acute problem in most populated districts and therefore there is high level of encroachment on to state lands for agriculture and other purposes. Even though there are many sound land use systems as “Kandyan Forest Gardens”, land use planning in Sri Lanka is still done in ad hoc basis. There are many state organizations responsible for land use planning and in the absence of an up-to-date data base and coordination among these agencies there is no proper land use policy for the future.