Changing Land Use and Water Management in a Ladakhi Village of Northern India

AbstractFocusing on agro-pastoralism and the change in farmland use by the highlanders in Ladakh, Domkhar valley in lower Ladakh was selected as the research site. Domkhar valley has a total population of 1,269 people and 193 households and is divided into three villages based on their locations: Domkhar Do (lower village, 3,000 to 3,100 meters altitude), Domkhar Barma (middle village, 3,400 to 3,500 meters altitude), and Domkhar Gonma (upper village, 3,600 to 4,000 meters altitude). There is a hamlet called Kuramric at the highest point of the upper village at 4,100 meters. The villagers release their livestock in the pastures in the U-shaped valley located above Kuramric. Barley is the main crop cultivated in all three villages. Wheat can be cultivated in the lower and middle villages, but not in the upper village. We created a list of households in the three villages in Domkhar valley before conducting interviews. We then created a map showing irrigation canals, the land ownership and usage of each household from the GeoEye-1 satellite images taken in September and November 2010. We elucidated the change in land use and water management based on this map of irrigation canals, land ownership and usage along with the interviews and on-site observations. For more than 30 years, Ladakhi people has been receiving government rations of cheap flour, rice, sugar, and petroleum in Ladakh where the Sino-Indian Border Conflict and the Indo-Pakistani War were fought. For this reason, their staple food has switched from barley to the rationed flour. The change in the livelihood of agro-pastoralism has brought about changes in the land use, but even in this case, the temperature constraint from the difference in altitude remains a major defining factor in the selection and introduction of cash crops