Human Activities and Landforms

Man's relation with his natural environment is a complex one. While he is subject to
certain natural controls and events, he also acts as the dominant force in many of the
Earth's physical and biological systems. The relationship has changed with time. For
thousands of years, the direction and extent of his progress were to a considerable
measure dictated by his physical environment, which sometimes presented him with
very difficult obstacles. Increasingly, man has become capable of altering his physical
environment to suit himself. Although the object of these alterations was to improve
his living conditions, in some cases they have created major long-term problems, and
in still others they have been catastrophic, both for the natural environment and
himself.

Modification of Landforms
Mining and quarrying, deforestation, the introduction of exotic plants and animals, the
use of agricultural machinery, the building and use of tracks and roads, and the
overgrazing of pastures, have all, singly and in combination, profoundly altered
landforms and caused accelerated erosion and deposition to occur. Where man
excavates or piles up material himself, he can be regarded as a direct agent of change;
where he causes natural landform processes, such as wind and water action, to
accelerate or diminish, he is acting in an indirect manner.

Direct Alteration of Landforms

Man has a direct effect on the shape of landforms by excavating and piling up earth,
reclaiming land from the sea and causing subsidence through mining. These activities
have greatly increased since the Industrial Revolution with the development of
enormous machine power and explosives for moving material. Railway and motorway
construction provides many familiar examples of man-created slopes, embankments
and cuttings. Land scarification is sometimes used as a general term for disturbances
created by the extraction of mineral resources; open-pit mines, quarries, sand and
gravel pits arc among the forms of scarification. Strip-mining is one of the most
devastating examples of landform alteration of this kind.

Indirect Effects: Slopes and Rivers

By far the most important of all man's effects on landforms arc those connected with
his interference with the natural vegetation, in particular with the clearing of forest for
agricultural purposes. There is a close relationship between the amount of vegetation
cover and erosion rates on hillslopes, and hence with the amount of sediment in
streams. A stable vegetation cover acts as an effective regulator of natural erosion,
protecting the ground from direct raindrop impact, absorbing some of the run-off, and
making the slope more cohesive. With the removal of the vegetation, the surface loses
its plant litter, causing a loss of soil structure, cohesion and porosity.

The alteration of infiltration and run-off on slopes by modifying the vegetation

inevitably has a profound effect on adjacent rivers in at least two respects: by
increasing both the discharge and also the sediment supply.

Coastal Erosion and Deposition

Man can have relatively little impact on the forces that govern waves, tides and
currents, but he has had some effect on coastal erosion and deposition at the shoreline
by building various structures and by removing beach material for ballast or
construction. Before the nineteenth century, the erection of small piers or breakwaters
to protect harbours was one of the few ways in which coastal processes could be
locally modified. In the last two centuries, the urbanisation of many coastal areas in
has often paid little attention to local erosion factors, and one can find many examples
where even a few yards of erosion by the sea may spell disaster for a heavily built-up
area. Hence various engineering structures such as breakwaters and seawalls have
had to be built to check marine erosion. However, these are not only extremely
expensive to build and maintain, but often defeat the object of the exercise, since by
checking erosion in one place they may lead to its increase elsewhere.

Modification of the Atmosphere

Atmospheric circulation systems operate on such a large scale that one is perhaps
inclined to doubt that man's activities would have any appreciable effect on them.
However, it is known that the global heat balance has changed over the last few
decades, and we might ask ourselves how much of this- is a result of man polluting
the atmosphere. It is certainly evident that pollution has marked local effects on the
atmosphere. The problem is not so much to establish that man has an impact on the
atmosphere but to evaluate it in comparison with the natural forces of change.
Atmospheric changes induced by man may be grouped into three categories: the
introduction of solids and gases not normally found in the atmosphere (pollutants);
changes in proportions of the natural component gases of the atmosphere; and
alterations of the Earth's surface in such a way as to affect the atmosphere.

Alterations to the Earth's Surface

Meteorological processes close to the ground arc extremely sensitive to the character
of the Earth's surface, and man's alteration of this through deforestation, agricultural
practice and urbanisation has had several important effects. One result of these
activities is to alter the rate of evapotranspiration. The complete removal of a forest
cover will sharply reduce transpiration and thus the amount of water returning to the
atmosphere in vapour form. The draining of a swamp will have a similar effect. Just
what impact, if any, this has on air masses of large vertical extent, is uncertain.

Another element that may be modified when man alters the ground surface is the
wind. Trees and hedges effectively brake the wind. causing a simultaneous diminution
in evaporation and in the carbon dioxide exchange close to the ground. Garden walls
or thick tree belts may so effectively still the air immediately to leeward as to cause
frost pockets on cold nights.