Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation
Abstract
International policies and guidelines often highlight the divide between 'nature' and 'heritage' in landscape management, and the weakness of monodisciplinary approaches. This study argues that historic agricultural practices have played a key role in shaping today's landscapes, creating a heritage which affords opportunities for more sustainable landscape management. The paper develops a new interdisciplinary approach with particular reference to soil loss and degradation over the long term. It presents innovative methods for assessing and modelling how pre-industrial agricultural features can mitigate soil erosion risk in response to current environmental conditions. Landscape archaeology data presented through Historic Landscape Characterisation are integrated in a GIS-RUSLE model to illustrate the impact of varying historic land-uses on soil erosion. The resulting analyses could be used to inform strategies for sustainable land resource planning.
Citation
Brandolini , F , Kinnaird , T C , Srivastava , A & Turner , S 2023 , ' Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation ' , Scientific Reports , vol. 13 , 4949 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31334-z
Publication
Scientific Reports
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2045-2322Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 890561, Historic Landscape and Soil Sustainability (HiLSS). Funding for fieldwork and analysis was provided through the TerraSAgE project (Terraces as Sustainable Agricultural Environments) from UKRI-Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC ref: AH/T000104/1).Collections
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