Key words
(English)
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historical ecology; landscape ecology; landscape change; agricultural history; agrarian modernisation; Berne (Switzerland)
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Research programs
(English)
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COST-Action A27 - Understanding pre-industrial structures in rural and mining landscapes
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Short description
(German)
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Ausgehend vom Textkorpus der Oekonomischen Gesellschaft Bern, das in einem laufenden SNF-Projekt umfassend erschlossen und analysiert wird, sollen unter Einbezug von weiteren Quellentypen (Karten, Landschaftsbilder, Statistiken) die Auswirkungen der Agrarmodernisierung auf die Kulturlandschaft im Kanton Bern im Zeitraum 1750 bis 1880 rekonstruiert werden.
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Partners and International Organizations
(English)
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AT, BE, CH, CY, DE, DK, EE, ES, FR, GR, IE, IS, IT, MT, NL, NO, PT, RO, SI, SK, UK
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Abstract
(English)
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The ecological consequences of agrarian change have recently become a research topic.This project looks into the landscape change, which occurred as a consequence of agricultural innovations made in the Swiss canton of Berne between 1750 and 1914. These innovations include the cultivation of leguminous fodder plants, constructing basins for storing liquid manure, the cultivation of the fallow fields, the division of common fields, industrially produced drainig tubes, the extension of potato cultivation, artificial manure, and the increase of dairy farming. The innovations affected the lowland zone, the transitional zone, and the Alpine zone within the canton of Berne in different ways. The landscape impact of agrarian modernisation in the various zones, is evaluated on elements such as marsh lands, pastures, cropland, hedgerows etc., based on various sources, mainly documentary data, topographical maps and an extensive socioeconomic database. This spatial and temporal analysis of the selected landscape elements is accompanied by an interpretation of their agrarian, aesthetic, and mainly ecological dimension. Specific landscape changes are described by means of local case studies. inally, the forces driving the depicted landscape change will be analysed, covering topics like major changes in the political and institutional regime and the integration in the world market of agrarian products. Such analyses provide a background for the assessment of long-term sustainability of human activities.
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References in databases
(English)
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Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. +41 31 322 74 82 Swiss Project-Number: C05.0071
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