Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya by Zurick David; Pacheco Julsun;

Author:Zurick, David; Pacheco, Julsun;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

HIMALAYA: SOIL CLASSIFICATION

The agricultural productivity of land is closely tied to soil type. Soil formation is a product of the weathering of parent material, or bedrock, and the addition of organic matter. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall on steep slopes erodes the soil much faster than it is created. Himalayan farmers, in turn, alter the composition and fertility of soils by adding compost and manure. The soil classifications in the map follow the groupings determined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Due to the geographic diversity of the Himalaya, as well as to the skewed distribution of people and settlements, the amount of land used for agriculture differs from place to place in the mountains. In the western Himalayan region of Ladakh, where agriculture is possible only under irrigation, less than 2 percent of the land is farmed. Livestock grazing is important in this arid zone, taking full advantage of the seasonal pastures. In Sikkim, the proportion of farmland increases to 10 percent (or closer to 30 percent if we exclude the highest elevations, where agriculture simply is not possible due to year-round cold temperatures). Some of the lowest amounts of land under cultivation are found in the eastern Himalaya. Arunachal Pradesh reports less than 5 percent of its area devoted to farmland. Overall, the amount of agricultural land in the Indian Himalaya is about 10 percent of the total area. Bhutan devotes 16 percent of its land to agriculture of some kind (including pastureland, which accounts for up to 12 percent of the total agricultural holdings), and in Nepal, which exhibits some of the highest population-farmland densities, cropped land alone accounts for more than 17 percent of the country's total area.

HIMALAYA: CROPLAND DISTRIBUTION

The farming systems in the Himalaya reflect environmental conditions as well as cultural systems of adaptation. Shifting cultivation is common in the eastern sector. The low and middle hills of the central and western regions support predominantly mixed grain cultivation. The high mountains are used primarily for livestock grazing.

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