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Ramankari The comparison of land use in 1997 with the status in 1990 derives the changes taken place during the last 8 years. Here also the change is mainly in the form of reclamation and degradation of rice cultivating puncha fields to other non paddy uses of land such as settlement with mixed trees, culturable waste etc. The area of paddy which occupied 1136.42 ha. in 1990 has been reduced to 984.5 ha. in 1997 and this shows a 13.37 percent reduction in paddy area, i.e., the puncha area which was represented in about 77.1% of the total geographical area in 1990 has been reduced to 66.78% in 1997.

The major conversion of paddy was to settlement with mixed trees category forming about 88.62 percent of total reduction in paddy area. The conversion to one time paddy and one time aquaculture (paddy with aquaculture) category comprises about 5.5 percent. About 5.48 percent of the change have been to culturable waste lands.

There is an increase in area of land use categories such as settlement with mixed trees from 16.89 percent to 26.63 percent, and coconut from 0.21 percent to 0.24 percent while slight decline in area was noticed in the case of mixed crops (from 1.99% to 1.60%), and River (from 3.8% to 3.58%) categories. The new categories evolved in the land use dynamics are Paddy with Aquaculture, pond and culturable waste comprising 0.56%, 0.03% and 0.58%; whereas the plantain category has been eliminated and changed to mixed crops category.



Kumarakom The comparison of land use in 1997 with land use in 1936 reveals drastic change in the components and pattern of land use over the last 6 decades. The main category where major change occurred is the paddy - double crop which formed about 96.37 percent in 1936 now reduced to 63 percent of the total geographical area of 2378.92 ha. The lake area has also decreased considerably from 13.37 ha. (0.56 percent) in 1936 to about 1.73 ha. i.e., 0.07 percent in 1997.

Out of the total paddy area conversion of 791.95 ha. (34.54% of the paddy area in 1936), the majority was to mixed crops category coming to about 577 ha. i.e., 72.86 percent of the total change in paddy cultivating area. The area changed to settlement with mixed trees category is 111.22 ha. forming about 14 percent. The major conversion is to coconut plantation of 75.92 ha. i.e., 9.59 percent. The conversion to other classes such as paddy with aquaculture, plantain, cocoa, pond and mango constitute 1.16, 1.12, 0.32, 0.23 and 0.16 percent respectively. The marsh and culturable waste comprise 0.92 and 0.28 percent respectively.

The main habitational land use categories viz., mixed crops and coconut have increased from 2.44 % and 0.31% in 1936 to 26.92% and 3.31% in 1997 respectively. Another major habitational category i.e., settlement with mixed trees evolved constitutes about 4.99 percent. The other new categories in land use are paddy with aquaculture, cocoa, plantain, mango and culturable waste each contributing only very small percentages. Slight increase has been shown in the area of pond and marsh during the period, although, some filling of these areas and conversion for habitational space have happened in the recent past.

The reclamation of lake and conversion of paddy fields to habitational land is concentrated along areas adjacent to the Vembanad estuary on the western side of the panchayat, especially along the banks of estuary and canals and on the sides of roads.



Comparison of the three study areas in the back ground of land use changes to get assessment of the changes in the whole Kuttanad region is discussed here, although the exact comparison is not possible as the time periods for our study in three panchayats slightly vary from each other. The number of land use categories in to which the paddy is converted is very limited in Ramankari when compared to the other two panchayats. Paddy with Aquaculture land use system is not introduced in Pallipad. The settlement with mixed trees category was more and the change of paddy to this category is much less in Pallipad compared to other panchayats. The virippu fields are not represented in Kumarakom and Ramankari. In Kumarakom most of the change of paddy was to mixed crop category unlike the other two panchayats. The degradation of paddy areas to culturable waste was not taken place in Pallipad unlike the other two panchayats.

The land use dynamics in Ramankari and Kumarakom is similar except the high pace of conversion at Kumarakom in recent years. Major observations on the land use comparison are,

1. The actual paddy cultivating area has been reduced considerably over the years with increased pace during recent times.
2. The habitational land use classes represented by settlement with mixed trees and mixed crops have increased considerably.
3. The new category of land use system like aquaculture along with paddy has already found a place in the Kuttanad region recently.

Cause - consequence analysis of land use changes :
The information on the causes and consequences of the above land use changes has been mainly derived through a technique popularly known as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) which involves field observations, discussions and interviews with local people and also by overlaying the road, rail and drainage map on the land use change map in the GIS environment.

Causes The main causes of the conversion of paddy cultivation to other non paddy uses and the increase in the area of habitational land uses in all the three study areas are, (i) the paddy cultivation is non-profitable in most time considering the various socio-economic factors and (ii) the increasing demand for habitational space due to the increasing population supported by the ignorance of the people about the long lasting serious consequences of the conversion.
Pallipad:- The virippu fields which were cultivated a decade ago is now fallow lands mainly due to the water logged condition which was the result of unscientific conversion and reclamation of low lands drainage channels. The developmental activities like railway lines, roads, foot paths, irrigation canals (PIP canal and its distributaries) and land filling damaged the natural drainage system. The virippu fields were converted much more than the puncha fields because they are easy to convert as the height difference between the actual dry land and the field is less compared to that between puncha and dry land. Another reason is the proximity of virippu fields to the existing habitational area. The reclamation of puncha lands need much more time, money, energy and effort than the virippu fields. Earlier the cultivation in the virippu fields, both rice and pulse, were a community effort and locally generated farmyard manure was utilised. Now the commercialisation and the introduction of modern agricultural practices like the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and weedicides have totally changed the operationalisation and have reduced the co-operation between farmers considerably. The large-scale reclamation of puncha fields at `Nalukettum Kavala’ shown in the inset of the map is due to the construction of water intake plant of Kayamkulam Thermal Power Plant situated at Choolatheruvu, which draws water from the Achenkoil River.

Ramankari: - The method of aquaculture with paddy which is recently introduced in Ramankari panchayat is much more profitable when compared to cultivating paddy alone and this encouraged the farmers for a shift from paddy to the new combined system. The financial and technical support of the State Government also made this change much easier. The areas adjacent to canals and roads are more converted. The slight decrease in river area is because of the reclamation of the river by the people living on the banks of it.

Kumarakom: - The boost in the conversion of paddy fields in recent years all along the lake side areas owes to the intensive tourism industry activities such as the construction of star hotels, restaurants and tourist complexes. This is also the reason for extensive reduction in mangrove areas shown as marsh in the Map. Here the paddy with aquaculture land use system is in conjunction with the integrated farming practices, which is a further progressive step along the way to make paddy cultivation remunerative.

In general the causes can be listed as follows,

1. Non remunerative nature and other constraints of paddy cultivation.
2. Huge demand for land for habitational purposes due to increasing population.
3. Lack of knowledge of people about the and serious consequences of the conversion./ reclamation.
4. Developmental activities making the land unsuitable for farming.
5. Commercialization of cultivation in virippu fields instead of the earlier sustenance farming.
6. Tourism industry and related activities.
7. Proximity of transportation facilities.
8. Lack of serious support from the government and society at large to the paddy farmers.

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