Tumkur district in southeast part of Karnataka state extends from 12°-45' North to 14°-20' north and 76°-20' to 77°-31' East. It has a geographical area of 10,788 km² with a total population of 25,84,711 (2001). Figure 1 show the broad details of ten taluks of this district. Being a part of Deccan peninsular of South Karnataka it has predominately crystalline rocks like Genesis and granites and resultant red soils. The whole district forms a part of rain shadow region of peninsular India and some its eastern taluks are closer to drought prone region of central southeastern India. District receives around 660mm of annual average rainfall which is again is erratic forcing the whole agriculture to depend on rainfed ground water and tanks. Its dry land agriculture due to no major river and irrigation projects and closerness to Bangalore city 55-160 km has created a sort of ‘push’ conditions interms of human rural urban migration. District has three national highways (NH48, NH206 and NH4) with a railway line (Bangalore- Miraj broad-gauge line) relatively better all-weather roads. District has more or less agro-based industries than other form of industries. It has made a mark in coconut production and its industries particularly in Tiptur and other western taluks.

The study of landuse and landuse change is of great importance in geographical studies. If not only helps to understand the temporal change but also is spatial variations. The positive or negative changes in the landuse have its bearing on the socio-economic and technological changes that have taken place during the same period in a region. And also it helps in identifying the other causes that have attributed for the changes undergone over time in the area of investigation.

In the following paragraphs the spatial variations in different landuses during the period from 1985-86 and 2005-06, have been analyzed with the help of percentage changes in landuse pattern in Tumkur district.

The past two decades in general have experienced a reckless cutting of forest whatever left in the region have led to ecological imbalance, increasing the aridity, erratic scanty rains and its impact on the socio-economic and physical environment one can see micro level physical changes of increased soil degradation and growth in more of xerotype of vegetation and scrubs in residual hills. On the other side the increasing demand for the food stuffs due to the alarming growth of population has definitely affected the area under not only forest but also on other land uses particularly as the analysis showed there is considerable increase on non agricultural land uses.

It is interesting here to note that in the study area at regional level has not shown any change in the area under forest. The same phenomena is observed in C.N.Halli, Koratagere, Gubbi, Madhugiri, Pavagada, Tiptur and Turuvekere taluks. However, in Kunigal and Tumkur taluks there is an increase in the forest area by 0.3% and 0.4% respectively.

The area under non-agricultural landuse and barren land has shown an increase in area by 0.4% from 1985-86 to 2005-06. The taluk level analysis of data reveals that majority of taluks have shown positive change in all taluks, Tumkur (1.1%), Tiptur (1.0%) and C.N.Halli (0.8%) taluks have high degree of increase in non-agricultural and barren landuse. It is evident from the fact that, these three taluks form a continuous east-west tract at the center of which Bangalore-Honnavar state highway runs encouraging the growth and expansion of industrial areas in these taluks. Whereas a small amount of increase in non-agricultural and barren land area is observed in Madhugiri, Pavagada, Turuvekere, Sira, Gubbi, Koratagere and Kunigal taluks with 0.3%, 0.3%, 0.3%, 0.2%, 0.1%, 0.1% and 0.1% respectively (Table 1).

The other uncultivated land like cultivated waste, permanent pasture and miscellaneous trees overall percentage has decreased in the district all the taluks in between these two decades. The spatial analysis has shown this decrease in percentage some taluks have more than the district average they are Gubbi (-7.2%), Sira (-6.3%), Kunigal (-6.3%), Tiptur (-4.7%), Turuvekere (-5.1%) and remaining taluks have less than the district average they are Koratagre (-3.0%), C.N.Halli (-2.4%), Tumkur (-2.4%), Madhugiri (-1.6%) and Pavagada (-0.4%) taluks.

4.5 reveals that there is considerable decrease in the area under current follows: It has declined from 1985-86 to 2005-06. At district level the decrease in area is to the extent of 7.3%. Amongst the taluks in the district the area under fallow lands in Tumkur (4.1%),Kunigal (3.1%) and Tiptur (1.0%) record an increase in the area under fallow lands, whereas in the remaining all the taluks there was a decrease in the area under this category.

Table 1

Sl. No.	Name of Taluks	Forest			Land not available for cultivation (non agricultural & Barren)			Other cultivated land (cultivated waste, pasture, miscellaneous)			Fallow land (current and others)			Net Sown Area
		1985-86	2005-06	Change +/-	1985-86	2005-06	Change +/-	1985-86	2005-06	Change +/-	1985-86	2005-06	Change +/-	1985-86	2005-06	Change +/-
1	C.N. Halli	7.2	7.2	No Cha	12.1	12.9	+0.8	24.9	22.5	-2.4	7.2	6.1	-1.1	48.2	51.1	+2.9
2	Gubbi	8.3	8.3	No Cha	18.2	18.3	+0.1	14.8	7.6	-7.2	10.8	5.9	-4.9	47.8	60.0	+12.2
3	Koratagere	4.9	4.9	No Cha	13.0	13.1	+0.1	21.2	18.2	-3.0	11.6	10.7	-0.9	49.5	55.8	+6.3
4	Kunigal	6.6	6.9	+0.3	12.6	12.7	+0.1	22.7	16.4	-6.3	3.2	6.3	+3.1	54.8	57.6	+2.8
5	Madhugiri	2.9	2.9	No Cha	19.1	19.4	+0.3	17.7	16.1	-1.6	20.9	12.8	-8.1	39.3	48.8	+9.5
6	Pavagada	4.3	4.3	No Cha	9.7	10.0	+0.3	10.4	10.0	-0.4	19.4	11.8	-7.6	56.1	64.0	+7.9
7	Sira	3.5	3.5	No Cha	19.0	19.2	+0.2	23.4	17.1	-6.3	33.8	3.3	-30.5	20.3	56.6	+36.3
8	Tiptur	0.8	0.8	No Cha	9.1	10.1	+1.0	22.3	17.6	-4.7	4.8	5.8	+1.0	62.9	65.4	+2.5
9	Tumkur	0.8	1.2	+0.4	12.1	13.2	+1.1	15.1	12.7	-2.4	11.2	15.3	+4.1	60.8	58.5	-2.3
10	Turuvekere	0.8	0.8	No Cha	8.1	8.4	+0.3	18.8	13.7	-5.1	21.2	6.8	-14.4	57.0	70.4	+13.4
	District	4.2	4.2	No Cha	13.8	14.2	+0.4	18.9	15.0	-3.9	15.6	8.3	-7.3	47.3	58.8	+11.5

Source : Data compiled from Bureau of Economic and Statistics, Government of Karnataka, Bangalore

The percentage decrease in the area under current fallow land varies from a minimum of 0.9% in Koratagere to the maximum of 30.5% in Sira taluk. Sira and Turuvekere (-14.4%) taluks have experienced drastic decrease in the fallow lands to the extent of more than 10 per cent of their total geographical area. However, this decrease in area is compensated very well with an increase in net sown area in these taluks. Remaining taluks are showing decrease in area less than 10% are Madhugiri (-8.1%), Pavagada (-7.6%), Gubbi (-4.9%), C.N. halli (-1.1%) taluks in the district.

Compared to other areas under land uses the area change in net sown area is quite prominent. There is an increase in net sown area of 11.5% in the district. All the taluks in the district show an increase in the net sown area from 1985-86 to 2005-06 except in Tumkur (-.23%) which shows a decrease in net sown area. On the contrary the taluks which have experienced more than 50.0% increase in net sown area are Madhugiri 9.5%, Pavagada (7.9%), Koratagere (6.3%) and remaining taluks C.N.Halli (2.9%), Kunigal (2.8%), Tiptur (2.5%) show a small amount of increase of net sown area. But Sira taluk has recorded an exceptional increase in net sown area to the extent of 36.3% in 2005-06 as compared to 1985-86 because of the good amount of rainfall and development of well irrigation in the recent years.