From Subsistence Agro-Pastoral Farming to Tourism-Driven Land Transitions in Ladakh, India

Population growth, urbanization, improved infrastructure, and climate change are reshaping land use systems worldwide, creating spatial trade-offs between economic development, ecosystem services, and cultural heritage. In Ladakh, Himalayan India, mass tourism and recent political changes have triggered a particularly rapid transition from traditional subsistence farming to market-oriented production, raising concerns about the sustainability of changing land management practices, cultural identity, and growing dependence on external inputs. To disentangle these concerns, we investigated land use changes, development patterns, and socio-economic drivers over the past 40 years. To this end we merged Landsat-based remote sensing data with household surveys in two contrasting, urbanizing regions—the Union Territory’s capital Leh and its more remote, third largest town of Diskit. Spatially explicit land cover maps for three periods of the 1970s, the 2000s, and the 2020s revealed an eightfold increase in residential area in Leh, with 41.7% of agricultural land converted to urban use, compared to a twofold increase and only 1.7% farmland loss in Diskit. Expansion of urban land use in Leh occurred in all directions across multiple land use types, while in Diskit, it remained localized to previously unused land. Survey data on socio-economic parameters showed a production shift toward goods demanded by tourism and the military, the latter being linked to border tensions with China and Pakistan. The divergent dynamics highlight the need for integrated spatial planning and scenario analysis to balance globalization-driven development with the conservation of cultural landscapes and ecosystem services. We recommend ecotourism-based strategies as an optimized pathway toward sustainable and multifunctional land systems in mountain regions.