Abstract: In the past, decisions made on land use have resulted in the degradation of land resources or an imbalance between supply and demand of those resources. Now land use, it can be used in resources management (forestry, production systems compatible with resources and agro-forestry, pasture management, nature protection and erosion control), rural regional development, community support and village development and government consultation (environmental strategy planning, agricultural sector planning, development planning, assessment of land potential). Land use planning is not only a kind of land use arrangement decision making but also a comprehensive decision for different aspects which has close relationships with or has heavy impacts on different types of land use and relations between different land use activities.

INTRODUCTION

Land use does not consider production only (Amler et al., 1999) but also land functions such as protected areas, land recreation, road-building, waste disposal sides and use restricted areas such as buffer zones for exhaust gases, areas for regenerating groundwater, buffer zones for traffic noise pollution, etc. Land Use Planning (LUP) is not only practiced when national authorities intervene or as a result of development co-operation projects. LUP happens in every society even if the term is not used. It deals with cases in which an intervention occurs in order to improve land use and to sustain natural resources.

Check list: It is appropriate to apply land use planning if:

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Principles of land use planning: On the basis of the central idea, eleven principles are explained below and converted into proposals for practical actions (FAO, 1995).

1st principle: Land use planning is orientated to local conditions in terms of both method and content because it is not a standardized procedure which is uniform in its application world-wide. Its content is based on an initial regional or local situation analysis.

2nd principle: Land use planning considers cultural view points and builds up on local environmental knowledge. Local knowledge should be part of the basis for planning and implementing a sustainable land use.

3rd principle: Land use planning takes into account traditional strategies for solving problems and conflicts. Traditional rural societies have their own way of approaching problems and settling conflicts concerning land use. In the process of land use planning such mechanisms have to be recognized, understood and taken into account.

4th principle: Land use planning assumes a concept which understands rural development to be a bottom-up process based on self-help and self-responsibility. The population should actively participate in the process of LUP. To ensure a feeling of ownership concerning self-help activities, people who are affected have to be involved in the planning process from the early beginning.

5th principle: Land use planning is a dialogue, creating the prerequisites for the successful negotiation and co-operation among stakeholders. The core task of LUP consists of initiating a process of communication and co-operation which allows all participants to formulate their interests and objectives in the dialogue.

6th principle: Land use planning is a process leading to an improvement in the capacity of the participants to plan and take actions. The participatory methods used in all planning steps of LUP promote the technical and organizational capabilities of all participants, thereby extending their capacity to plan and to act. In the medium term, this qualification process leads to an improvement in the capacity of local groups for self-determination.

7th principle: Land use planning requires transparency. Therefore, free access to information for all participants is a prerequisite. Transparency in planning and the extent to which stakeholders are informed, strengthen both their willingness and capacity to participate in planning and decision-making. The dissemination of information in the local language(s) contributes to an improved transparency. In addition, it strengthens the trust of the population in land use planning activities.

8th principle: The differentiation of stakeholders and the gender approach are core principles in land use planning. A prerequisite for realistic land use planning is the detailed analysis of the various interest groups. The aim is to find out the various interests of the participants in order to create a basis for the negotiation and decision-making process. Men and women often do not have the same access to land and have specific ways of articulating themselves.

9th principle: Land use planning is based on interdisciplinary cooperation. The ecological, economic, technical, financial, social and cultural dimensions of land use make it necessary to study with an interdisciplinary approach.

10th principle: Land use planning is an iterative process; it is the flexible and open reaction based on new findings and changing conditions. LUP is more than the preparation of a planning document; it is an iterative process. Iteration is both the principle and the method simultaneously. New developments and findings are specifically observed and incorporated into the planning process. It may lead to the revision of decision and the repetition of steps already taken.

11th principle: Land use planning is implementation orientated. Land use planning has to consider how the negotiated decisions and the solutions identified are to be implemented. LUP does not end with the land use plan. The implementation of limited measures (e.g., the development of cultivation techniques which conserve land resources) right at the outset or parallel to the LUP process plays an important role in increasing the trust of the people in the village as far as the planning process is concerned (Fig. 1).

Planning levels: A national land-use plan may cover:

Land-use policy: Balancing the competing demands for land among different sectors of the economy food production, export crops, tourism, wildlife conservation, housing and public amenities, roads, industry.

National development plans and budget: Project identification and the allocation of resources for development.

Coordination of sectoral agencies: Involved in land use and legislation on such subjects as land tenure, forest clearance and water rights.

Fig. 1:	Shows the conjugate for best utilization of land use (Stephenne and Lambin, 2001)

District level planning: The kinds of issues tackled at this stage include: the sitting of developments such as new settlements, forest plantations and irrigation schemes; the need for improved infrastructure such as water supply, roads and marketing facilities and the development of management guidelines for improved kinds of land use on each type of land.

Local level: The local planning unit may be the village a group of villages or a small water catchment.

Steps in land-use planning: There are 10 steps in land use planing.

Step 1: Establish goals and terms of reference, define the planning area, Contact the people involved acquire basic information about the area, establish the goals. Identify the problems and opportunities, Identify constraints to implementation, establish the criteria, Set the scope of the plan.

Set the planning period, Agree on the content and format of the plan, Decide operational questions. The Basic information that may be required are land resources, present land use, present infrastructure, population, land tenure, social structure and traditional practices, government, legislation, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and commercial organizations.

Step 2: Organize the work it enclose, the following points:

Step 3: Analyze the problems like, In responsibility planning team collect data on the existing situation: population, land resources, employment and income, present land use, production and trends, infrastructure. Identify and map: land units, land use systems. Identify problems of land use: nature and severity, land units and land-use systems affected, analysis of causes.

The recommended methods, interviews with land users, local leaders, extension staff, agencies, field reconnaissance.

Prepare problem statements the land units are delineated: to analyze the present situation it will be necessary to break the area down into land units, areas that are relatively homogeneous with respect to climate, landforms, soils and vegetation. Each land unit presents similar problems and opportunities and will respond in similar ways to management. Appropriate land units at the national level might be agro-climatic regions at the district level, land systems and at the local level, land facets, soil series or other soil mapping units.

Some symptoms of land use problems are as follow: Migration to towns, Low rural incomes, Lack of employment opportunities. Poor health and nutrition, Inadequate subsistence production, Shortage of fuel and timber, shortage of grazing land, low, unreliable crop yields, desertion of farmland, encroachment on forest and wildlife reserves, conflicts among farming, livestock and non-agricultural uses, visible land degradation, e.g., eroded cropland, silted bottomlands, degradation of woodland, salinity in irrigation schemes, flooding.

Underlying causes related to land use social problems:

Step 4: Identify opportunities for change:

Step 5: Evaluate land suitability:

Step 6: Appraise the alternatives:

Step 7: Choose the best option in responsibility planning team:

Step 8: Prepare the land-use plan:

Step 9: Implement the plan:

Step 10: Monitor and revise the plan:

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

After the analysis phase, the stakeholders have to reach binding agreements and decisions. Therefore, the results of the data analysis have to be presented in a way which is understandable to everyone (FAO, 1995). Land maps, maps of environmental damage, maps depicting landscape units or agro-ecological zones, maps of present land use forms are an important basis for the discussion because they have high visualization content. The guiding principle for the presentation is that the how is just as important as the what. Not only the results are important but also the ways and means by which they have been achieved. The methods and procedures to be applied affect the quality and sustainability of the decisions and results. In this instance, it means that the how of the presentation and the successive planning step are also important for the sustainability of the measures to be implemented.

Land use option: This procedure leads to land use options according to their economic profitability and is certainly a useful scheme in areas of high pressure on land resources (Barker, 2006). Of course, the sequence presented here can vary from location to location, e.g., an intensive pasture can in individual cases, be placed higher than rain fed agriculture in terms of economic factors.

Furthermore, additional land use options can be added and others neglected. If there are land reserves which should not or cannot be developed directly, an option should be implemented or maintained which is ecologically stable (e.g., natural forest). This might also be possible in a location for potential irrigated agriculture.

CONCLUSION

Land use planning is not only a kind of land use arrangement decision making but also a comprehensive decision for different aspects which has close relationships with or has heavy impacts on different types of land use and relations between different land use activities.