TerraSAgE: Terraces as Sustainable Agricultural Environments

TerraSAgE：梯田作为可持续农业环境

• 批准号: AH/T000104/1
• 负责人: Sam Turner
• 金额: $ 97.98万
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT000104%2F1
• 关键词: TerraSAgE; Terraces; Sustainable; Agricultural; Environments

Across the world terraced landscapes have been created to produce diverse crops, to improve soils and to manage water resources - historically, they have been critical in many areas for dry-land agriculture. Despite this widespread occurrence, the history of agricultural terraces has remained poorly understood, largely due to problems in dating their construction, modification and use. This failure to understand the history of terraces has hampered broader research on the histories of landscapes, limiting knowledge of how settlements operated within their wider landscapes and of how terraces reflect the long-term investment choices made by rural communities. A new technique for dating soil profiles developed by members of the project team has recently demonstrated unique potential to unravel the formation and development of terraces through time (Kinnaird et al. 2017). Applied in parallel with geoarchaeological techniques, including chemical and micromorphological analysis, and broader landscape survey, these methods presents an opportunity to revolutionise understanding of past terrace systems and their landscapes - and to reveal and evaluate the societal, economic and environmental strategies that underpinned their construction, evolution and abandonment. Our project will answer research questions in four key areas about the history of terraces:- When and how were terraces constructed, maintained and managed in different periods and regions?- What were the triggers for terracing, and why were they sometimes abandoned?- Has terracing proved an environmentally sustainable land-use strategy for rural communities?- Did terraces enable greater resilience to economic or ecological instability, and did they help mitigate the impacts of past climate change?TerraSAgE is geared towards uncovering knowledge of past landscapes and using it to model scenarios of change and thereby inform sustainable strategies for the future of land-management. Terraces provide a unique case for understanding long-term environmental impacts of land-use and evaluating long-term sustainability in agricultural practice and policy. For example, studies have demonstrated how the EU Common Agricultural Policy led to more intensive farming, mechanisation and new terracing techniques in the Mediterranean, including land-levelling, the introduction of new crops like vines and almonds, and less stable, bulldozed 'bench' terraces. This shift from pre-20th century 'traditional' terracing had major environmental consequences, causing widespread erosion and impacting soil health and drainage. Better understanding of how historic periods of transformation in farming impacted the land are essential to provide better information with which to underpin future sustainable land-use and create informed policies for future resilience, particularly in the face of increasing demand for food and climatic instability. Such needs are not limited to Europe and can be identified around the world. TerraSAgE's research, though conducted in Europe, will have relevance for global terrace conservation and management. In this sense, the project will contribute to progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (for example Goal 2 'Zero Hunger' and Goal 15 'Life on Land', which are both concerned with the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems). Because the approach of TerraSAgE will examine the relationships between environmental concerns about soil, water and management and cultural heritage issues, the project will also contribute towards the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (which has been signed and ratified by all the countries where the project will work), whose revolutionary definition of landscape emphasises the indivisibility of its natural and cultural aspects.

世界各地都建立了梯田景观来生产各种农作物、改良土壤和管理水资源——历史上，梯田在许多地区对旱地农业至关重要。尽管这种现象普遍存在，但人们对农业梯田的历史仍然知之甚少，这主要是由于其建造、改造和使用的年代问题。对梯田历史的不了解阻碍了对景观历史的更广泛研究，限制了对定居点如何在更广泛的景观中运作以及梯田如何反映农村社区做出的长期投资选择的了解。项目团队成员开发的一种测定土壤剖面的新技术最近展示了揭示梯田随时间的形成和发展的独特潜力（Kinnaird 等人，2017）。这些方法与地质考古技术（包括化学和微形态分析以及更广泛的景观调查）同时应用，为彻底改变对过去梯田系统及其景观的理解提供了机会，并揭示和评估支撑其建设的社会、经济和环境策略、演变与遗弃。我们的项目将回答有关梯田历史的四个关键领域的研究问题：- 梯田在不同时期和地区何时以及如何建造、维护和管理？- 梯田的触发因素是什么？为什么有时会被废弃？事实证明，梯田是农村社区环境上可持续的土地利用策略？- 梯田是否能够增强对经济或生态不稳定的抵御能力，是否有助于减轻过去气候变化的影响？TerraSAgE 致力于揭示过去景观的知识，并将其用于模型场景变化，从而为未来土地管理的可持续战略提供信息。梯田为了解土地利用的长期环境影响和评估农业实践和政策的长期可持续性提供了独特的案例。例如，研究表明，欧盟共同农业政策如何导致地中海地区更加集约化的农业、机械化和新的梯田技术，包括平整土地、引进葡萄树和杏仁等新作物，以及不太稳定的推土机“长凳”露台。这种对 20 世纪前“传统”梯田的转变产生了重大环境后果，造成大面积侵蚀并影响土壤健康和排水。更好地了解农业转型的历史时期如何影响土地对于提供更好的信息至关重要，从而支持未来的可持续土地利用并为未来的恢复力制定明智的政策，特别是在面对粮食需求不断增加和气候不稳定的情况下。这种需求不仅限于欧洲，在世界各地都可以找到。 TerraSAgE 的研究虽然在欧洲进行，但与全球梯田保护和管理具有相关性。从这个意义上说，该项目将有助于实现联合国可持续发展目标（例如目标2“零饥饿”和目标15“陆地生命”，这两个目标都涉及陆地生态系统的可持续利用）。由于 TerraSAgE 的方法将审查土壤、水和管理等环境问题与文化遗产问题之间的关系，因此该项目还将有助于实施《欧洲景观公约》（该公约已由该项目所在的所有国家签署和批准）将会起作用），其对景观的革命性定义强调了其自然和文化方面的不可分割性。

项目成果

Written in soil and paper. Investigating environmental transformations of a monastic landscape by combining geoarchaeology and palynology with historical analysis at Samos (Spain)

用土和纸写成。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103575
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Reports
• 影响因子: 0.9
• 作者: Silva

Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation.

模拟历史景观变化对土壤侵蚀和退化的影响。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1038/s41598-023-31334-z
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Scientific reports
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Brandolini F

The Evolution of Historic Agroforestry Landscape in the Northern Apennines (Italy) and Its Consequences for Slope Geomorphic Processes

亚平宁山脉北部（意大利）历史农林业景观的演变及其对斜坡地貌过程的影响

• DOI: http://dx.10.3390/land12051054
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Land
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Brandolini F

Dating and Characterising the Transformation of a Monastic Landscape. A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Agrarian Spaces of Samos Abbey (NW Spain)

修道院景观转变的年代测定和表征。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1080/14614103.2024.2319954
• 发表时间: 2024
• 期刊: Environmental Archaeology
• 影响因子: 1.5
• 作者: Sánchez

Dating Agricultural Terraces in the Mediterranean Using Luminescence: Recent Progress and Challenges

利用发光测定地中海农业梯田的年代：最新进展和挑战

• DOI: http://dx.10.3390/land12030716
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Land
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Srivastava A