Abstract:
This study examines the causes affected to change land use pattern in Monaragala city area during the period from 1985 to 2018. The main objective of this research is to identify the causes of land use pattern in Monaragala city area. Magandamulla. Monaragala and Viharamulla Grama Niladhari Divisions belonging to the Monaragala Divisional Secretariat Division were selected as the study area. Regional approach was applied for this research. Quantitative and qualitative data were used in order to answer the research question posed in this study. Secondary data obtained from the Department of Land Use in Monaragala District, Department of Agriculture in Monaragala District and the Agrarian Services Center of Monaragala District. To investigated the nature of the study area, 1:50000 Metric Digital Data in 1985 and 1: 50000 Metric Digital Data in 2000 and 2018 data were obtained through Google Earth ware used. The data were analyzed using GIS techniques and Excel. After analyzing the data, it was identified
four key factors causes for the change in land use pattern in Monaragala city area. Those factors were increased service facilities, expand the land are of Monaragala city, increased settlement and the introduce of new crops such as rubber. With the impact of these factors, many land use changes could be identified in Monaragala city area. Such as, the land area of a home garden which was 4.179km2 in 1985 and that value increased to 5.054km2 in 2018. Rubber plantation was introduced to the study area in the year 2000, and it was mainly affected to change the land use patterns. According to the analysis data, it was found out that 0.709km2 planted rubber in 2018. And also in 1985 the forest cover of 2.032km2 in 1985 has decreased to 1.325km2 by 2018. The number of paddy lands in 1985 were reduced from 0.417km2 to 0.219km2 by 2018. The rock area of the study area was 0.171km2 in the year 1985, and it has reduced to 0.147km2 by 2018. Thus, at the end of the study, it was able to identify the reasons for the change in land use pattern in Monaragala city area.
