Greening and Restoration of Wasteland with Agroforestry (GROW) Portal Restoring India’ wasteland

What does the GROW portal provide?

The GROW portal provides open access to agroforestry suitability data and maps at state and district levels on the Bhuvan platform.

GROW report and portal

The Greening and Restoration of Wasteland with Agroforestry (GROW) initiative is an effort to optimize land use sustainability in India. NITI Aayog officially launched the GROW report and interactive portal in February 2024, harnessing advanced geospatial technologies to systematically map agroforestry potential in India.

Using high-resolution remote sensing data and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, NITI Aayog led a cross-institutional collaboration developing an Agroforestry Suitability Index (ASI) across all districts in India. This scientifically grounded approach lays a foundation for evidence-based planning and policymaking, targeting the restoration of uncultivated lands through agroforestry practices aligned with national sustainability commitments.

By leveraging space-based mapping, the GROW initiative aims to convert up to 26 million hectares of wasteland into productive carbon sinks by 2030, driving greener development.

Agroforestry Suitability Mapping

The GROW initiative developed an Agroforestry Suitability Index (ASI) to prioritize areas for agroforestry expansion across India. The ASI uses a mapping model to measure how suitable different districts are for growing trees and crops together. It looks at factors like weather, terrain, soil conditions, and land use. By mapping the potential across India, the ASI shows which wastelands and degraded zones are best to convert into new agroforestry systems.

The GROW report includes interactive state and district level maps and data visualizations based on the ASI. These tools help regional planners decide where to focus reforestation and restoration programs. In short, the agroforestry suitability maps empower government and communities to make data-based decisions about greening projects. This supports sustainable farming and land use across India’s diverse ecosystems.

What are the key features of GROW Portal?

The GROW portal is an important tool for community-based, data-driven agroforestry planning across India. The portal is built on the Bhuvan geographic data platform. It gives open access to the GROW project’s maps, data, and reports at the state and district levels.

Users can view interactive maps showing the best areas for agroforestry in different locations. They can check vegetation trends over time and download reports. The portal also uses satellite images to show current agroforestry areas, covering about 8.65% of India’s land (28.42 million hectares) as of 2024. By making local information available to all, the GROW portal helps planners, policy makers, and farmers tailor agroforestry approaches for local conditions. This connects plans and interventions to on-the-ground opportunities.

GROW Portal alignment with National Commitments

The GROW initiative strongly supports India’s main national goals for land restoration, climate change, and farming. For example, the Bonn Challenge is a global pledge to restore back 26 million hectares of damaged land by 2030. Agroforestry from the GROW program can help meet this goal.

Likewise, turning unfarmed wastelands into lush, carbon-absorbing agroforestry areas matches India’s Paris Agreement climate aims. For food security, shifting some marginal croplands to include trees and livestock can increase diversity and resilience of the whole system, optimizing farmable land to advance sustainability. By showing local agroforestry potential across regions, the GROW roadmap directly guides policymaking in all these connected areas.

Wasteland Statistics of India

India’s GROW campaign is driven by the huge area of unused wastelands nationally, totaling nearly 90 million hectares. As of 2022, As of 2022, wastelands occupy 16.96% of India’s land area, as reported in “Wasteland identification in India using satellite remote sensing” by Narayan, Rao, and Gautam (1989).

Transforming these degraded, low-nutrient lands into resilient agroforestry systems promises to control soil erosion, support livelihoods, and absorb carbon. The GROW portal and index offer key mapping and prioritization tools for converting wastelands countrywide into productive and eco-friendly agroforests. This enables large-scale agro-ecological improvement across India.

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