Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
periods. Fire was used not only in open grazing lands but also to suppress undesir-
able woody vegetation in rangelands. This practice is still used in several parts of
the Mediterranean such as Corsica, Sardinia and Crete (Papanastasis, 1998).
8.3.4 Agriculture
Clearing land of natural vegetation to grow arable crops is a very old land use prac-
tice in the Mediterranean Basin. In the beginning, the impact of agriculture on the
landscape was not great because human numbers were small and the changes were
restricted to the lowlands. After the ancient civilizations developed, the impact of
agriculture became greater but again it altered the plains far more than the uplands.
The latter were infiltrated by agriculture in the medieval and early modern times,
when people were forced to move to the mountains to avoid lowland malaria, while
the introduction of the American crops such as maize and potato and the invention
of irrigation techniques made their life easier (McNeill, 1992).
Cultivation on mountain slopes destabilizes soil because it removes all the natu-
ral plant cover and exposes soil to accelerated erosion. It is one of the most drastic
human interventions in the environment. In order to ensure productivity, moun-
tain farmers had to invent terracing to hold the soil in situ and prevent its washing
down slope. Archaeologists claim that terraces have been used by Mediterranean
farmers since ancient times (van Andel et al., 1990; Rackham and Moody, 1992).
However, with the large-scale emigration of mountain people in the late nineteenth
century, all these terraces collapsed for lack of maintenance leading to severe ero-
sion. Signs of old terraces can be seen in almost all Mediterranean mountains
(Figure 8.3).
Like livestock husbandry, agriculture was not universally well developed in all
Mediterranean mountain regions. Out of the five ranges he studied in detail, McNeill
(1992) found that agriculture was historically more important in the Sierra Nevada
of Spain, the Lucanian Apennines of Italy and the Rif mountains of Morocco than
in the Taurus mountains of Turkey and the Pindos mountains of Greece.
8.3.5 Mining
Mining for extraction of minerals has been a land use practice in certain Mediter-
ranean mountains. It is a very drastic activity that leads to much degraded land-
scapes. McNeill (1992) mentions the case of lead mining in the Sierra de Gador of
Spain, which started in 1818 and ended in the 1880s, as well as the lead and iron
mining in the Rif mountains of Morocco, which was carried out by Carthaginians
and Romans in the past and by Spanish and British companies in modern times.
Mining activities are still going on in several Mediterranean mountains. Such a
case is the bauxite mining in Parnassos and Giona mountains of Greece, which has
denuded the landscape (Figure 8.4).
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