Land Use Planning

INTRODUCTION

The beauty of agriculture is that every waste product from a sector can be recycled and used for the benefit of another sector, thereby leading to profit maximization and cost minimization. This can also be applicable in fisheries where aquaculture; which is the rearing or farming of economically important aquatic plants and animal in a confined environment is combined with any other form of agriculture like crop science, animal science, soil science amongst others which are cultivated or reared on land as the case may be for the benefit of mankind. Land is defined as the earth’s surface, land and water, plus natural state such as: mineral deposit, wildlife, fish, timber, and water. Land use is characterised by the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce, change or maintain it. According to Baker and Miller (2013) the land use/land cover changes may affect the rates of interception, infiltration, evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge. Land use change is directly related to changes in surface water resources in a water source area, and so land use changes (Deng et al., 2015). This process of change varies from farmer to farmer and over the space and time (Ghosh et al., 2011). The way people handle and use land resources impact their social and economic well being as well as the sustained quality of land resources (Rao et al., 2015). Land use management is therefore a scheme that has helped in reducing the effect of land limitation. For a proper and organize land use the need for land use planning must be emphasized. Hence, what is land use planning?

Land use planning  is a gradual planning exercise to assess the potentials of the agricultural sector and achieve accelerated growth through judicious management of land and water resources.  Land use planning is the process by which land are evaluated and assessed to become a basis for decision involving land disposition and utilization, studying the environmental effect of land use and its impact of the community (Jeffery et al., 2003; Ghosh et al., 2011; Rao et al., 2015). Achieving food security, mitigating and adapting to climate change, protecting biodiversity while at the same time initiating economic growth, protecting people from natural disasters, preventing and settling land conflicts or initiating development in a drugs environment are just a few of the many challenges rural areas in developing countries are currently facing. Land use planning is one of the tools that can help to meet them as it focuses on negotiating future land and resource uses by all relevant stakeholders. Land use planning is a systematic and iterative procedure carried out in order to create an enabling environment for sustainable development of land resources which meets people’s needs and demands. Land use planning is an essential tool for pollution prevention and control. Land uses are categories that refer to the different socioeconomic activities occurring in a particular area, the human behavior patterns they create and their effects on the environment. Integrated aquaculture is one of the many strategies adopted for a better and efficient use of land.