Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Environmental Legacy of Historic Human Land Use

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Environmental impacts of agriculture and grazing are a major concern worldwide, particularly the long-term impacts on soils and vegetation. Centuries of agricultural and grazing activity ceased in the mid-nineteenth century in western Scotland, leaving surface traces in the landscape. A gap remains in understanding how this land use specifically affected the subsurface soils and the vegetation they continue to support. This project will identify the environmental impacts of historic land use in western Scotland, focusing on the remote Knoydart peninsula. Historical data and archaeological maps will be used to guide sampling which captures differences between cultivated and uncultivated areas and grazing gradients in summer pasture settlements. More fertile, finer-textured soils are anticipated within relict fields and around summer settlements as a result of soil amendments including manure and seaweed. Sample plots within the different land-use areas will capture vegetation and soil differences. Plant species abundance and landscape-position data will be recorded in each plot, and soil samples collected for characterization including particle size, pH, organic matter, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Land-use variables recorded will include cultivation history and distance to summer settlement as a measure of grazing intensity. Cluster analysis will be used to classify vegetation communities, and multivariate ordination will be used to reveal the importance of individual variables in explaining plant species distributions. The results will identify detailed soil and vegetation properties associated with past land-use areas that have until now been visual correlations.The research focuses on how soil properties associated with past cultivation and grazing determine current vegetation patterning. While better soil and vegetation is frequently associated with past land-use areas in the region this has not been scientifically tested. The research focuses on the total historic land-use landscape, bringing a synthesis new to northwestern Europe. Results will allow comparison of the study site with analogous pastoral landscapes in Norway and possibly extend the temporal span of environmental legacy research in the region by 100 years. In addition to highlighting scientifically ignored cultural soils, all data and findings will be shared with both the John Muir Trust and the Knoydart Foundation. Both organizations are actively engaged in ecological restoration and seek fuller understanding of the ecological resources they manage. Data from this study will be incorporated into web delivered cultural history content served by the Knoydart Foundation and at their visitor centre in Inverie.