Guide to learn how to read a landscape

I like to depict myself as a landscape investigator; meaning that when I am studying a new small agricultural area I am first trying to get a sense of what farmers have in their hand and what is the use of the landscape. A try at answering why the landscape is looking as it is. Trying to understand the geology, the geomorphology, the land cover and land use (in terms of vegetation, farmed use or forestry, towns and buildings, roads…). Trying to understand its characteristics in a functional world as well as the underlaying ground.

« In compared agriculture the landscape is the visual representation of what is seen at a given scale for a way, a mode to use the landscape, itself part of an agrarian system” Cochet 2011, P.94

This landscape reading is part of the compared agriculture approach developed over the years by the team at AgroParisTech I got great mentors in Sophie Devienne. Impressively it means that from a sight of the landscape and compiled with your maps you start drawing impressive hypothesis. Comparing your observations at the small agricultural area or at a welsh scale makes it's even more relevant.

«All production systems from small agricultural areas depend at least partially on the landscape spatial elements”

(though it’s importance has been reduced by the artificialisation of the land through inputs and evolutions linked to the green revolution)

”,besides the landscape can inform as the original information bearer on production systems. It partially shows how neighbouring and superposed farm production system interacts.” Deffontaines 1973

These are some steps of how to read and understand the landscape, usually we would do it at a small agricultural area scale, a coherent agricultural area, not necessarily homogenous, among which farmers are supported, farm and interact. What I offer today is to do the one of landscape analysis when you are standing in one place.

• The first step of landscape reading is to observe and finely chisel the landscape. Qualify, quantify what you see. You will try to separate its different parts in order to acutely and correctly describe them.

Welcome to the Berwyn's we are standing on top of a hill over Llandrillo looking to the South-East. Sitting and looking is the first step.

Here I took a picture but I would at the same time draw, take notes, look at the topographical map (ordnance survey), the geology map (Britain geology survey) and at home I would check what I saw with Google Earth or Aerial Photography Resources.

• From this description we need to decrypt it with other observations other sources and information’s. But on a number of landforms and geomorphology as in most cases correlation doesn't mean causal link.

To have a better idea of what's ahead of view and scales it is key to have the Ordnance Survey 1:25000 maps on hand as well as some aerial/satellite photographs. Here from google earth.

We also sometimes need to understand land use the geology maps (better if you can link them to the relief or some land use). Here for example the head deposits seem to match with the pine forest.

• Our goal is to try to understand how these different part of the landscape are used and form part of a coherent and functioning farming system. This at different scales the we will understand those will only be hypothesis.  To represent this analysis we produce archetypical drawings of the organisation of each landscape; its characteristics and what’s available.

First the topography archetypical landscape, linking it to the geology and superficial deposits

Adding the land use to this. The Berwyn area, a gently tilted plateau impacted superficially by the Devensian glaciation, a sparsely populated area mainly focused on Beef and Sheep production.

• Once those hypothesis are constructed you will need to validate them through the literature, interviews or further investigation.

Just to add to all this, you can look at a landscape at different scales. But look for clues even when they can be misleading. For example to check the bedrock of the place, look at stone walls, buildings... Every little thing matters!

In Ruthin, the church stones gives us a clue about what is lying under our feet; red sandstone and hard grey limestone. What it doesn't tell you is that the Clwyd vale is covered by alluvial and glacial sediments!

A stone wall in Anglesey, a kind of schist. This schist looking really blue is very hard and has some microcrenulations (little "waves") into it.

The landscape changes from a season to another and from place to place. it's important to understand how things change, several or long term observations are thus in order to get the sense of what's happening. Changing the place you observe things from is also important.

March and the Clwyd vale from the East side - the Clwyd Range.

November and the Clwyd vale from the West side

You also have to be mindful of the time of the day... Depending on it you won't see similar things.

I propose that we have a look at the area around Bala through a serie of photograph and helped by the google earth satellite views:

I will try first to split this picture in three elements first to foreground, the hill on which I'm standing. Middle ground, with the hills around the town. And finally at the very background, looking towards Corwen, mountains, the Berwyn mountains. In between we can guess the Dee Valley alluvial plain.

We are only going to focus on what’s in front of us, those hills.

Landscape profile:

On those ridges, the top doesn't seem to be very high, it's around 120m and we have a 50 metres of altitude difference between the top and the bottom of the valley, which is not a lot on 400 metres span which makes it a relatively gentle slope.

So the valley itself is around 800 metres wide from one top to another (relatively wide). The river stands right in the middle. The bottom of the valley is flat and is around 50 metres wide on each side, and then it goes up.

Both sides of the valley are convex in terms of profile. But two's the two sides are dissymmetrical. We can see clearly that the east side of the valley has quicker drop of altitude on the last 20 m to the river compared to the gently sloping west side of the valley.

it's not a big big drop in just a slope is not that steep, but there's a difference between the two sides of the valley. (it is a short of shoulder). Overall the landscape gives us an impression of smooth hills like it’s been rubber polished, we don’t see any rock protrude or stark profile.

The elements:

In this picture we can see different elements;

• We have some trees, some deciduous trees and some pine trees that we can recognise with their dark green colour and they don’t lose their leaves in autumn. The deciduous trees are more of the field  delimitation some set in hedges some that have grown out of it. Some fields are also fenced. Pines trees are grouped in patches at the top of the hills.
• We can see also a range of grass fields rather geometrical and organized, seemingly rotating around hills axis. Except for some fields bigger than others. There are some delimited by trees, hedges, and in some cases, only a fence. The only one that doesn’t seem so organized is at the left of the town and seem to be the result of amalgamation.
• We have different shades of green but not that different compared to other green shades I have seen in Wales around here. It is surprisingly pretty homogeneous (from here).There are fields that may be a bit more yellowish and most of all, there are some fields that have some rushes into it (mostly in the bottom). These are the dark spot in the grass that shows that basically says waters there.
• We also have some windmills. On the top of the hill, which makes sense because it's where you will have to more wind exposure.
• The town itself (Gwyddelwern) is in the bottom of the valley next to the river it makes sense to have access to the river. That's where the main road is and where the railway was.
• Most farms are located mid slope which is maybe pretty hard to see on this picture. But I can tell you that most farms are located mid slope on each side of the hills.
• Farm buildings themselves are a mix of old farm buildings with a cow shed and a farmhouse. Some farms (maybe the one still active) have steel frame sheds. From their age it seems that they have been built somewhere in the 70’s-80’s and some more recently 2000’s. The more recent expansions can be disjointed from the original farm holding (with the farmhouse). Steelframe sheds for cattle mostly, couple for sheep lambing and finally maybe one poultry shed around. The fact that sheds are dotted over the hills seem to indicate that there is no shortage of water supply anywhere.
• On animal sides, we can see some white dots and some dark dots. Some sheep in white (ewes, not yearlings), and beef for the dark plots (suckler cows and their calves). And so probably some West blacks or some Angus, we would have to check.

I'd like to look at the foreground now. We can see grass. Okay, we have grass, but it's not any kind of grass sword this is very short, and seems kind of dense, but at the same time, a bit yellowish. It's pretty typical of sheep farming systems, the fact that it’s short seem to indicate that it has been grazed recently (plus the dung). As grass growth has slowed down tremendously it might no bear sheep until next year lambing. And we can see that it's not flat. It's gently descending, of course, but there's a micro kind of relief. There are some bumps in the field.

Now some bumps into the field. So is it because it's never been ploughed? Or is it due to the fact that there's not a lot of soil available? Or is it due to the fact that the sheep or the cattle kind of trampled it?

Interpretation phase, hypothesis only:

We are standing in a place with a very heterogeneous mudstone and siltstone. And usually it's rather heterogeneous in hardness. But consistently impermeable. (have a look at the BGS 3d website)

Water would therefore only stay on top the bedrock (won’t percolate) and going naturally to the place of lower resistance, digging out the valley out of differential erosion. The fact that the bedrock is impermeable allows each farm to have their own water supply key to water animals even in the middle of the hill. Looking at the geological superficial deposits the bottom of the valley and half of the slopes are covered with Till glacial deposits. They are constituted of boulder clay and silt, which is not great for farming. This is judgemental I know, I am sorry. Those deposits would be thicker on flats and gently sloping areas. On the other parts the soil would arise from the bedrock, a heavy but rather thin (remember tops are hard to erode) top soil layer. We also have to keep in mind that the tops of the hills will be slightly more exposed to wind. Glacial deposits which might give to slightly better soils, maybe a bit heavier with more clay components in it, which makes it make them a bit more difficult to go on during the year.

The smoothed down aspect can then be linked to a superficial glacier action (no proper U shaped glacial valley or other glacial feature).

We don't see many cows outside at this time of the year in November, which means that a lot of them may have been taken back inside the sheds except of black cows there (the native breed Welsh blacks, hardier). There are not so many sheeps around either, maybe meaning that some have already gone downcountry wintering. Rams are with ewes, tupping is underway for a march lambing.

There are no animals onto the top part of the hills, all animals are rather close to the bottom. There were some sheep as well into the marshy bottom but they are not in the picture.

We can guess that the top part of the farm might have been used more during summertime or early autumn, rather than during winter and late autumn when the conditions are a bit rougher.

The position of the farmstead makes us think that the top part of the farm seem to be important for grass growing, because otherwise it wouldn't be maybe more down in the valley. It also means that in the past some cropping and hay making could take place around them.

We'll just finally add that said there hasn't been any ploughing to be seen at this time of the year, or at least not a lot. And most fields seems to be long term temporary pasture or very long term, temporary pasture, or have been ploughed at some point but not ploughed anymore (due to the sword aspect and the absence of ray-gras). We are most likely looking at the landscape that has been gradually turned into grass or centuries most likely. Still changing also I have spotted new silage pits and what looked like dairy black and white heifers...
 

Here it is for a little bit of landscape analysis, keep in mind that those are hypothesis that will need to be checked further down the road. ;)

Feel free to share your own feelings about those two landscapes. Happy to talk about it or about your landscapes whenever your want.

Théo