Skip to main content

Terraced agriculture


AS THE TECHNOLOGY OF AGRICULTURE spread around the world c. 10,000 years ago, it was probably pretty simple to adopt in areas of flat land. For people living in mountains or hilly terrain, on the other hand, certain adaptations were necessary.
Terracing is a type of landscaping whereby a natural slope is transformed into a stair-step of successively receding flat surfaces. This gives farmers multiple sections of arable land that: a) are more comfortable to work on, b) can be irrigated without excessive runoff, and c) are less susceptible to erosion.
Terracing has been utilized in the production of various crops in different parts of the world for thousands of years. In South and East Asia, terraces predominantly serve as rice paddies. In the Mediterranean, grape vines and olive and other agricultural trees are grown. And in the Andes, terraced slopes are planted with potatoes, maize, and quinoa. But beyond their primary function as agricultural tool, terraces possess an aesthetic that immediately draws your eye, especially when viewed from the proper vantage point as in the photos below.
There are two well-known rice-terrace regions in southern China. Located in Yuanyang county, Yunnan province, this is one of them. The bright colors here are the result of algae growing on the surface of standing water on some of the terraces.

Terraces like this often make up the scenery when trekking in Nepal. From the photographer: “A view on terrace cultivation landscape near Damphus. At this moment of the year (february), there are mostly wheat (light green), potatoes and lentil (dark green). Later, in the monsoon, it will be rice.”

The second of southern China’s famous rice-terrace regions. Two terraces in particular account for most of the photos from Longsheng that appear in this list: Ping An Rice Terrace and Jinkeng Rice Terrace.

30 miles from Cusco, Moray is an Incan archaeological site and is thought to have served as an open-air laboratory for testing the effects of different elevations and irrigation schemes on the cultivation of crops.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Watch as Patrick Stewart Recites a Poem with a Yorkshire Dialect

In a scene from TOWN with Nicholas Crane, Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek and X-men fame,  gets nostalgic over his childhood and recites a poem in his native Yorkshire dialect. His mother and aunt would recite the poem around Christmas time every year which is probably why he still remembers it many years later. Stewart was born in Mirfield - a small town in West Yorkshire England.
Post a Comment
Read more

Wildlife conservation on ice: frozen zoos to save animals

  On the edge: Disease and habitat loss is decimating wild amphibian populations globally, with more than 200 species needing urgent intervention through captive breeding, says Dr. Simon Clulow. In a south-eastern suburb in Melbourne, there’s a zoo. It has no visitors, and there are no animals anywhere inside it. Rather, the Australian Frozen Zoo houses living cells and genetic material from Australian native and rare and exotic species. This place, and others like it, could be a big part of the future of conservation. Department of Biological Sciences’ Simon Clulow and his colleagues make the case for ‘biobanking’ in a recent piece in Conservation Letters. Clulow is keen to stress that this doesn’t mean getting rid of conventional zoos or captive breeding programs. “Captive breeding has had some wonderful successes, and there will always be a huge place for it,” he says. PhD student and lead author Lachlan Howell agrees. “It was captive breeding that brought the giant panda back f...
Post a Comment
Read more

California’s surge of large wildfires: a multi-dimensional fire challenge

September 21, 2021  Accumulating fuels and rising populations are contributing to California’s large, destructive fires. Climate change has helped fuel California’s surge of unusually large and destructive fires by exacerbating heat waves and droughts , but climate is not the only factor contributing to the surge. More than a century of fire suppression has caused excessive amounts of dead trees, leaf litter, and dried brush to build up in forests. Meanwhile, California’s increasing population means that many more people now live and work in areas that are prone to fire. The consequences of all the fires are remarkable, even from space. The false-color image at the top of the page shows burn scars left by large fires that burned in recent years, including the two largest incidents on record in California: the August fire complex and the Dixie fire . The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on September 21, 2021. ...
Post a Comment
Read more