Excerpt
Because of favourable land resources and its location at the hub of the Mediterranean civilizations, Turkey has been exploited for more than 3,000 years for that natural wealth. This left the southern Mediterranean coast—with its shallow and rocky karstic lands—denuded, the Anatolian plateau devoid of its unique forests and biodiversity zones, and the Black Sea coast gullied and desolate. Dogan (1998) reports that about 64% of the land in Turkey is subject to wind and water erosion, saline and alkaline soils occupy about 3.1% of the land (this area is constantly increasing due to poor irrigation management), and about 31% of the land has shallow or very gravely soils due to soil loss. Reduced land quality was not a concern until recently, when to feed and clothe the burgeoning population, the country had to rely not only on imported grain and feed but also on imported seeds, fertilizers, and agrichemicals to augment the low productivity levels. The reduced productivity of the land was masked by technological inputs to production and national policymakers were lulled into believing that sustainability could be achieved in the absence of disciplined land use.
Countries face many …
Footnotes
Cemil Cangir and Duygu Boyraz are professors in the Department of Soil Science at the University of Trakya, Turkey. Salim Kapur is a professor in the Department of Archaeometry at the University of Cukurova, Turkey. Erhan Akea is a research assistant in the Department of Soil Archaeometry at the University of Cukurova, Turkey. Hari Eswaran is with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington, D. C.
- Copyright 2000 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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