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Chapter ID: CBB329678807

Step after Step the Ladder is Ascended Human agency in Irrigated (anti) Landscapes (2014)

Ertsen, Maurits W. (Author)

Pages: 45-60
Publication date: 2014
Language: English

URI: https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789401211697/B9789401211697-s004.xml

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Irrigation; drainage Water resource management Environmental sciences Indus River Landscape; landscapes Nature 20th century Pakistan

Irrigation is an obvious blessing that often disguises long-term problems. It provided food for ancient civilizations by improving growing conditions for crops, but could cause crop failure by increasing soil salinity or vulnerability to climate change. In the modern Indus Basin in Pakistan irrigation may be heading for disaster as groundwater levels drop dramatically. In the early twentieth century, Indus Valley groundwater levels rose because of large-scale irrigation development. About fifty years ago, tube wells were installed to lower groundwater levels. These same tube wells are now blamed for depleting the groundwater. Perhaps the anti-landscape being created today is the old, dry landscape of the eighteenth century. When taking a closer look at the Indus Basin, a period of some two centuries shows the importance of human agency in anti-landscape creation. In the Indus, one encounters human construction of irrigated landscapes, their potential turn into anti-landscapes, and the human responses creating other, better irrigated landscapes. Studying the Indus yields new, interesting questions in the debate on the collapse of ancient civilizations – and potentially our own.

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Book David E. Nye; Sarah Elkind (2014) The Anti-Landscape. unapi

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