Forest to Farmland and Back
Again: A Changing Vermont Landscape
PERSICO, Lyman P., MALLARD, Laura
D., BIERMAN, Paul R., and MASSEY, Christine A.
GSA Abstracts with Programs, vol. 32, no. 7.
Hundreds of historical images
dramatically show how humans and the Vermont landscape have affected one another
in the last three centuries. By reoccupying the sites of these historical
photographs and paintings, we document that the most prevalent changes in the
landscape include construction and removal of dams, grazing, farming, flooding,
landslides, road construction, clearcutting, and subsequent reforestation. In
fact, we found that many of the pictures were hard to rephotograph because the
once-bare hillslopes from which the photos were taken are now heavily tree
covered. Around 1900, when many historical photographs were taken of Vermont's
hillslopes, as much as 60% of the landscape was deforested by sheep farming and
timber harvesting. Much of the landscape change that we have documented in
Vermont's rural areas has occurred around waterways, including millponds and
dams. For example, small dams such as one that powered a mill in Greensboro,
Vermont have been removed returning the once-ponded Greensboro Brook to a
free-flowing stream. Conversely, after the statewide flood of record in 1927,
many flood control dams were installed on large rivers. In urban areas such as
Burlington, we find that much of the landscape change involves the addition of
many human-made structures including buildings, roadways, and parking lots all
of which inhibit surface infiltration. In Burlington, we used air photos and
maps to quantify this impact throughout the past 150 years. For example, on the
University of Vermont campus we found that impermeable surfaces area has
increased from 4% of land area in 1869 to 43% in 1996. The images we analyzed
are available to the public at a National Science Foundation supported website
(http://www.uvm.edu/perkins/landscape).
