Uttarakhand - Department of Land Resources

of the Siwalik, the Lesser Himalaya, the Great Himalaya and the Trans-Himalaya or
Tethys. Human habitation is found up to an altitude of 3500 m above msl; however,
the zone between 1200 - 2000 m, largely falling in the Lesser Himalaya (1500 - 2500
m above msl), is densely populated. The decennial growth rate of the population of
the state for the decade 1991-2001 was 19.20. In this region the human population is
continually increasing and the region is experiencing major difficulties in sustaining
its growing population on its squeezing environmental resources-land availability,
forests and grasslands, water resource, etc. Much of the environmental resource
degradation is governed by mountain specificities, viz., inaccessibility, fragility,
marginality, diversity (heterogeneity), niche (natural suitability) and adaptability
(human adaptation) apart from the growing population. They result in limited external
linkages and replication of external experiences, slow pace of development, intraregional
imbalances and underutilization of regional potential.
The total area of the state is distributed in altitude zones as given below:
Altitudinal Zone
Percentage of area
Below 1000 meter 26.00
1000 - 2000 meter 33.00
2000 - 3000 meter 13.00
Above 3000 meter 28.00
Uttarakhand State 100.00
The population of the state primarily depends on agriculture for livelihood; about 70%
of the population is engaged in agriculture. Out of total reported area, only 14.02% is
under cultivation. More than 55.0% of the cultivated land in the State is rainfed. The
cropping intensity is 160.6%. The landholdings are small and scattered. The average
land holding is around 0.68 ha (that too is divided into many patches) in the hills and
1.77 ha in the plains.
2