Communities suffer intense damage from land degradation. One of the critical factors in this negative impact is the loss of ecosystem services (Bell and Walker, 2014). People who live on degraded land experience serious health problems without normal functioning of natural air filtration, which leads to severe respiratory issues (Bell and Walker, 2014). It is logical to conclude that the functioning of all social structures and the overall psychological and social tone suffers when there is a sharp outflow of population.
The central aspect of culture affecting the landscape’s state is the conventional view of nature. Based on available research, certain cultures have a permissive attitude toward nature, while in others, the situation is the opposite (van Andel, Zangger and Demitrack, 1990). One suggested factor is urbanization, which means a common tendency to build modern buildings and steadily get rid of villages (van Andel, Zangger and Demitrack, 1990). Thus, one may logically conclude that cultures with nomadic or rural lifestyles have a higher propensity to care for the environment.
There are several practical solutions to resolve the issue of soil erosion. The main one is to maintain a perennial, healthy plant cover (Butzer, 2005). In this way, natural resources will be more resistant to external sources. Coarse aggregate, woody biomass, and other synthetic material can be utilized in high-traffic areas where the flora is challenging to develop and maintain (Walsh, 2008). Other eroding solutions include geosynthetics materials or other permanent cover technologies such as sodding or hydroseeding (McClung De Tapia, 2012). Considering all of the above solutions, erosion can be significantly slowed down or stopped entirely by starting a reverse greening process.
Reference List
Bell, M. and Walker, M. (2014) Late Quaternary Environmental Change. 2nd ed. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Van Andel, T., Zangger, E. and Demitrack, A. (1990) ‘Land Use and Soil Erosion in Prehistoric and Historical Greece’, Journal of Field Archaeology, 17(4), pp. 379.
Butzer, K.W. (2005) ‘Environmental history in the Mediterranean world: cross-disciplinary investigation of cause-and-effect for degradation and soil erosion’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 32, pp. 1773-1800.
Walsh, K. (2008) ‘Mediterranean Landscape Archaeology: Marginality and the Culture–Nature Divide’, Landscape research, 33(5), pp. 547-564.
McClung De Tapia, E. (2012) Surviving Sudden Environmental Change : Answers From Archaeology, University Press of Colorado, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central.