Historical Resilience of Landscapes to Cultural and Natural Stresses: Grænavatn farm estate, Mývatnssveit north-east Iceland

Reconstructing historic landscapes responses to a range of factors contributed by natural processes and anthropogenic activities is an important part of understanding why natural systems fluctuate between stable and unstable conditions. In doing so new understanding of landscape resilience in a dynamic environment can emerge and ultimately lead to new ideas for sustainable management.

To understand the natural and cultural features interacting on the Grænavatn farm estate, this study assesses factors of historical land management, climate change and natural catastrophes and their contribution to changing vegetation cover and soil erosion over extended periods of time. To do so a range of data is considered on the effect of soil and vegetation properties sourced from soil accumulation rates, tephrochronology, ice-core records, pollen analysis, micromorphology and historical records.

The results demonstrate a complex interaction of natural processes, such as fluvial, climate and natural volcanic catastrophes influencing the stability of the landscape before Landnám. Changes in vegetation post-Landnám initiated by anthropogenic influences extended the natural process, resulting in instability with varying severity of land degradation. The landscape did show some recovery identified in the proxy data from micromorphology and pollen records pre-1477 AD. However, anthropogenic activities and deteriorating climatic conditions from 1717 AD shows a reversal in soil conditions and a subsequent increase in erosion which was beyond the ability of the natural system to recover, resulting in the severe land degradation visible today.

Grænavatn Iceland International Polar Year Mývatnssveit pollen analysis resilience soil analysis soil micromorphology tephrochronology

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