Analysis of land use change, root causes and potential impacts of the Lower Num Samun Sub-watershed of Nan Province

Abstract

Current changes in agricultural way have resulted in serious problems of misuse of land increasingly. While the technical information to find causes, factors, and important driving forces as a motive for changing agricultural way have not much. Therefore, the aims of this study were to analyze land use change and to find out the root causes and potential impacts of land use changes in the Lower Num Samun Sub-watershed of Muang District, Nan Province. The result of land use changes was integrated with information on changes in agriculture way in which derived from focus group and in-depth interview of key informants in order to analyst the root cause of land use change by using Ishikawa diagram. The results showed that forest area had been decreasing continuously caused mainly from deforestation and land clearing for maize cultivation, whereas para rubber plantation had rapidly been increasing. The economic agricultural activities of local communities and the government policy supporting the agricultural sector were the key driving forces of land use changes. Since, most of local agriculturists mainly practice business agricultures in order to raise up their economic status, and they had more facilities in debt financing for agricultural purpose. This resulted in the expansion of agricultural area and the changes in agricultural pattern in the study area. In addition, the impacts of land use, particular in land and forest resources utilization in the upstream region may influence on local sustainable development in the future.

Keywords: Driving forces, Land use change, Misuse of land, Nan watershed, Root cause analysis