Land Use and Income in Rural Areas

Land as defined by FAO (1976) is “an area of earth’s surface, the characteristics which embrace all reasonably stable or predictably cyclic attributes of the biosphere vertically above and below this area, including those of the atmosphere, the soil, the underlying geology, the hydrology, the plant and animal population and the results of the past and present human activity, to the extent that these attributes influence on the present and future use of the land.” Land is an essential natural resource, both for the survival and prosperity of humanity, and for the maintenance of all terrestrial ecosystems. It serves many functions such as for production of food, fiber, fuel, or other biotic materials for human use, for provision of biological habitats for plants, animals and microorganisms, for the regulation of the storage and flow of surface water and groundwater, for provision of physical space for settlements, industry and recreation, and many more that are very essential in human life. However, over millennia, people have become progressively more expert in exploiting land resources for their own needs.
The natural state of the land tend to change over time as the activities of man on, in, over and under the earth’s surface affects it. These activities of man are termed as land use which is defined by the FAO/UNEP (1999) as the “total of arrangements, activities, and inputs that people undertake in a certain land cover type.” Land cover refers to the observed physical and biological cover of the earth's land, as vegetation or man-made features (FAO, 1997). Uses that are placed by nature, such as vegetative cover, mineral deposits, and wildlife and fisheries, and those introduced by man are both taken in the concept of land use. Land use pertains to broad categories such as forest, agriculture and settlement.

One factor that contributes to the problems in the drivers of sustainability is how human welfare and land use are related to one another and