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Título del libro: Encyclopedia Of Soils In The Environment, Second Edition
Título del capítulo: Terraces as traditional agricultural landscapes. Stability amidst change

Autores UNAM:
GERARDO HECTOR RUBEN BOCCO VERDINELLI;
Autores externos:

Idioma:

Año de publicación:
2023
Palabras clave:

Asia; China; Cultural landscapes; FAO; Geoparks; Heritage; Mexico; Peru; Philippines; Terracing; Traditional agriculture; UNESCO


Resumen:

Agricultural landscapes, particularly in hilly to mountainous tropical terrains, have been constructed through millennia by local, peasant or indigenous societies on the basis of their traditional environmental knowledge. Agricultural terracing is an excellent example of an agricultural landscape. As ancient as agriculture itself, terracing has been practiced by rural communities in fragile or marginal environments in all continents, from North Atlantic subarctic islands to dry and wet tropical regions. The ancient techniques of terrace building, still used in many regions by small-holders, peasants managing subsistence agriculture, have been complemented or replaced by contemporary techniques employing mechanical equipment particularly for excavation in the frame of modern agriculture. In this chapter, emphasis will be on the first type of terracing, i.e., as a traditional agricultural landscape. Terraces have been largely devoted to subsistence agriculture, and were able to feed substantial numbers of people under various political and organizational systems. Regardless of the environmental characteristics and the level of social peasant organization, the purposes of any type of terrace are soil and water conservation and rain-fed or irrigated agriculture in marginal or fragile sloping terrains. In every instance, local, traditional slope management plays a key role. Abandonment has been also occurring in various places through history, probably accounting for the decline of terracing in many sites. Despite differences in the type of human-environment relationship, abandonment seems to follow economic crises in agriculture that in turn trigger migration. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


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