Global Change and Mountains: Consequences, Responses and Opportunities - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 110

The natural risks of this unplanned urban growth are now clearly
discernible in most of the urban centres and their surroundings, in the
densely populated Lesser Himalayan ranges of the newly carved mountain
state of Uttarakhand, such as, Nainital, Mussoorie, Pauri, etc. It is expected
that the urban growth cannot be stopped or reduced but can be steered in
a more sustainable way by a proper integrated land-use management. The
urban development in the region is also having long-term impacts on the
fragile ecosystem and environment of the urban fringe areas consisting
of natural forests, wildlife habitats and water sources including, lakes,
streams and natural springs and agricultural land. The natural components
of the urban fringe zone are being degraded and depleted steadily and
signifi cantly through the expansion of urban land use, deforestation, habitat
destruction, mining of aggregate material for construction, waste and
sewage disposal, and facilitating changes in the traditional land use and
resource management practices by the multiplier effect of urban growth
(Tiwari 2008, 2007, Tiwari and Joshi 2011, 2005).
A large proportion of cultivated land and other areas are being
encroached upon by the process of rapid urbanization and expansion of
infrastructure, services and economic activities in the Himalaya, every
year (Tiwari and Joshi 2011, 2005). A study indicated that the most densely
settled and rapidly growing urban centres of Uttarakhand Himalaya have
been fast intruding upon productive agricultural land in their surrounding
rural regions. This has caused huge transformation of cultivated land
within urban centres as well as in their peri-urban zones leading to land-
use intensifi cations. Rural areas surrounding these urban centres have lost
their prime agricultural land ranging between 4.71% to as much as 12.97%
due expansion of urban land use in urban fringe during the 30 years. The
loss of fertile agricultural land, decrease in supply of biomass manure and
reduction of irrigated area caused by the ruin of forests and development of
urban structure contributed 19 to 55% decline in agricultural productivity
in 10 urban zones. Consequently, rural settlements situated on the fringe of
these urban complexes are currently facing food defi cit between 65 and 95%.
Undoubtedly, urbanization has contributed signifi cantly to socio-economic
betterment of the region through development of infrastructure, generation
of employment opportunities in various emerging sectors, such as, tourism,
trade, services, etc. However, depletion of forest resources and decline in
agricultural economy decreased off-farm employment opportunities in
traditional forestry and agricultural sectors. As a result, rural households
in peri-urban zones have lost 7 to 12% of their food purchasing power. This
will have long-term impacts on local food security affecting particularly
the poor and socially marginalized communities constituting nearly 75%
of total population (Tiwari and Joshi 2011, Tiwari 2008).