The benefits of leveraging landscape ecology and heritage together have been increasingly recognised by policy-makers and reflected in schemes to promote environmental management 23, 24. Thus, their conservation and valorisation are necessary not only to mitigate the effect of land degradation but also to preserve historic character for future generations. Recent geochronological analysis has confirmed the antiquity of such features in case-studies across the Mediterranean 22. Such boundaries are also key components of historic landscapes. hedgerows, stone walls, earth banks) for their benefits to ecosystems 3, 20, 21. Nevertheless, recent environmental studies and policies have recommended maintaining cultural and archaeological landscape features such as intercropping, agroforestry and cross slope barriers (e.g. Since the 1950s, the widespread application of mechanised agriculture has resulted in major transformations of the landscape by enlarging fields, removing their physical boundaries and replacing traditional multi-cropping practices with monoculture systems which have enabled farmers to increase efficiency, productivity and profit 18, 19. For instance, in mountainous regions of the Mediterranean, the decline in the importance of agriculture has led to a significant reduction of activities in rural areas, with progressive depopulation of villages and changes to the characteristic historic features of landscapes 17. ![]() ![]() In European countries, historic landscape change has occurred with unprecedented intensity over the last 70 years 14, 15, 16. Archaeological research into such practices may have the potential to inform more sustainable soil management in the future 13 (noting that the definition of ‘sustainable’ in this paper corresponds to the one used by FAO 3). From a heritage perspective, many cultural landscapes have been created through agricultural practices such as terrace farming, agroforestry and integrated crop-animal farming which trace their origins far back into the past 9, 10, 11, 12. Archaeological sciences can contribute by exploring social and environmental interactions to examine the impact of different practices over long periods of time 6, 7, 8, and considering what made different practices sustainable or unsustainable in terms of past soil management. The FAO Symposium noted that pre-industrial farming practices often contributed to maintaining healthy soils while modern intensive agriculture and mechanisation have frequently induced significant erosion 3. Among the main conclusions from the FAO Symposium were calls for joint efforts from all stakeholders and for collaboration among researchers to deal with this complex emergency at various scales 3. Agriculture represents the largest LULC type worldwide and developing more sustainable agricultural systems is an urgent global challenge 5. Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) dynamics are the major anthropogenic drivers of soil loss and degradation 4. The ‘FAO Global Symposium on Soil Erosion’ 3 underlined how soil degradation can be accelerated by human activities, with substantial implications for future land productivity, rural livelihoods and biodiversity. ![]() ![]() The latest projections on climate change indicate that increasingly severe storm intensity and runoff will induce greater soil losses by water erosion in the future than in the past decades 1, 2. Land degradation is a critical environmental issue worldwide.
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