# A kingdom affected by deforestation



## Northern winds (Sep 24, 2014)

One part of my continent used to have lots of ancient, huge trees.The climate is coastal, rainy and temperate. The great forest had very fertile soil, which is why humans chose to settle there. The trees provided them with lots of wood and they quickly expanded. A medieval, feudal kingdom with a wealthy noble class appeared. This kingdom became the largest one on the continent thanks to the natural resources and the great location. Mineral resources were scarce, but the land was extremely good for growing crops. And they built a lot of unnecessarily big buildings. The whole enormous forest was cleared after a while, which quickly lead to soil erosion since the climate is rainy. The land was over-grazed by animals, and soon all the nutrients were gone and crops no longer thrived. (Inspired by what happened to the Roman Empire.) Most farmers had to give up and move into large towns in search of work. Some of the abandoned fields in the valleys became swamps and other places no longer had shelter from the strong sea winds. (I’m still trying to figure out what could have happened to the wildlife.) 

Landlords of this kingdom are losing their power over the people as an effect. The land they rule over no longer has any economic benefit. *Is that realistic?* They can’t expand further. I also want the merchant class to grow as a result of this. I want the leader of the merchant guild in the largest city to become very influential. I want urbanization to occur and the feudal system to weaken. I still want to keep my kingdom a monarchy, though. But will everybody — peasants, workers, merchants and nobles alike — lose because of the lack of fertile farmland and wood resources? Will the working class able to find employment in a city in a scenario like this? The kingdom is located near the coast and lakes are common, so a bit of fishing might be available as well.

I really want the upper class (preferably the richest merchants) of this kingdom to stay rich, despite the fact that the kingdom has failed badly by depleting its resources too quickly.

There are lots of lakes nearby. *Is it possible that they could have become eutrophic?* I mean, with all the natural nutrients washed away from the fields… If they ended up in lakes, they could cause some damage there too, right? 
Who knows what kind of strange creatures could appear in a eutrophic fantasy-lake! 


(My story focuses on semi-nomads in other parts of the continent but I still want a large, horrible monarchy to exist.)


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## KC Trae Becker (Sep 24, 2014)

You are describing a temperate rain forest like the Pacific Redwoods. I don't know enough about that area to tell you specifics, but tropical rainforests actually have poor soil. All the nutrients are bound up in the biosphere. That is why slash and burn works well on a short term basis. Much of the nutrients are returned to the soil in the burning, but then are quickly depleted again through farming and leaching. The aboriginal inhabitants would then leave the forests to heal for at least a hundred years to build itself and it's nutrient rich biosphere back up.

You are describing a slow change. If you had a quicker change, a boom and bust sort of kingdom your nobility would still be rich. 

Perhaps there is a short term fishing boom before that too goes bust.

The lake could easily become eutrophic. Perhaps this forces out amphibious creatures that had dwelt deep in the lake to find other food sources.

This scenario could effect weather patterns as well.

If you want morphed creatures as a result of this catastrophe, maybe some of the nutrients leached from the tree where magical and caused drastic results in the local fauna.  Or some sort of reservoir of dangerous magic was disturbed by the weather shifts.

Good luck, this sounds like it could be a lot of fun.


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## Nihal (Sep 24, 2014)

KC is right that tropical forests usually have poor soil. They have a fertile but thin layer of humus on the top, then another of poor soil due the high rainfall and often a third deeper layer of bedrock. Remove the forest and the humus layer will be gone. However, not all the tropical and subtropical forests have latosols, and not all the types of latosols are poor.

There is a special type of soil occurring in Brazil and Argentina called "Terra Roxa/Tierra Colorada" (purple/red soil). 








It's also a latosol, but it's extremely fertile. It was formed in the biggest basalt lava flood ever happened in Earth. Its existence allowed the massive cultivation of coffee in Brazil during the XIX~XX centuries, playing a vital role in its history. I know little of what exactly grew in these lands before they were cultivated, but I know that at the least the Araucaria forests where located there. A quick research returned me these two maps:











In the first the deeper green registers the Araucaria Forests original occurrence, then the Atlantic Forest. Technically the Araucarias are part of the Atlantic Forest biome, but they're coniferous and tall, bearing no resemblance to resemble the typical tropical forest image. The second map registers the purple soil occurrence. I reckon it's slightly inaccurate, the lower portion of basaltic soil should stretch across the country, touching the Atlantic Ocean.

P.s.: If you want to research about the purple soil I advise to use the original names + google translator. The lack of articles on that in English is astonishing.


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## ThinkerX (Sep 24, 2014)

> Landlords of this kingdom are losing their power over the people as an effect. The land they rule over no longer has any economic benefit. Is that realistic? They can’t expand further. I also want the merchant class to grow as a result of this. I want the leader of the merchant guild in the largest city to become very influential. I want urbanization to occur and the feudal system to weaken. I still want to keep my kingdom a monarchy, though. But will everybody – peasants, workers, merchants and nobles alike – lose because of the lack of fertile farmland and wood resources? Will the working class able to find employment in a city in a scenario like this? The kingdom is located near the coast and lakes are common, so a bit of fishing might be available as well.
> 
> I really want the upper class (preferably the richest merchants) of this kingdom to stay rich, despite the fact that the kingdom has failed badly by depleting its resources too quickly.



Hmmm...The feudal system works best in an agricultural intensive society.  Once the land becomes infertile, then yes the peasant class will look for prospects elsewhere.

That said, when resources decline, the 'rich' first keep most of the wealth, and then all of it.  So, you'd have a noble class slowly abandoning agriculture, sinking what wealth they can into more urban professions.  So...your old aristocracy would become the new mercantile oligarchs, more or less.

Also, quite a few other factors in play, but with the old vegetation stripped out and a rainy climate, there will be a lot of erosion.  Odds are that some fertile soil might end up not so much 'depleted' as 'relocated' several miles downstream. Likewise, once the land is abandoned, new vegetation will start to appear - nothing that would interest farmers, but still...there.  After a few generations of neglect, a new forest would appear.  Being new growth, rather than old growth, all sorts of critters would find homes amidst the shrubbery.


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## Northern winds (Sep 25, 2014)

KC Trae Becker said:


> You are describing a temperate rain forest like the Pacific Redwoods. I don't know enough about that area to tell you specifics, but tropical rainforests actually have poor soil. All the nutrients are bound up in the biosphere. That is why slash and burn works well on a short term basis. Much of the nutrients are returned to the soil in the burning, but then are quickly depleted again through farming and leaching. The aboriginal inhabitants would then leave the forests to heal for at least a hundred years to build itself and it's nutrient rich biosphere back up.
> 
> You are describing a slow change. If you had a quicker change, a boom and bust sort of kingdom your nobility would still be rich.
> 
> ...



Oh, so it's only the top-soil in rainforests that is fertile, and the underlying layers are very poor. Well, it makes sense. A quick boom and bust-kingdom would only occur in a tropical forest, perhaps combined with a fishing boom. Local rain surely decreases as a result of deforestation, but does desertification happen too in this type of setting? That would be dramatic. 

I like the idea with the amphibious creatures - it could affect their fishing.


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## Northern winds (Sep 25, 2014)

Nihal said:


> KC is right that tropical forests usually have poor soil. They have a fertile but thin layer of humus on the top, then another of poor soil due the high rainfall and often a third deeper layer of bedrock. Remove the forest and the humus layer will be gone. However, not all the tropical and subtropical forests have latosols, and not all the types of latosols are poor.
> 
> There is a special type of soil occurring in Brazil and Argentina called "Terra Roxa/Tierra Colorada" (purple/red soil).
> 
> ...



Kind of unexpected to find coniferous forests in this biome, interesting! I didn't find much information about terra roxa/purple soil, but it seems like a good reason to settle down and start cultivating. Would I get any fast erosion with this latosol?


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## Northern winds (Sep 25, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> Hmmm...The feudal system works best in an agricultural intensive society.  Once the land becomes infertile, then yes the peasant class will look for prospects elsewhere.
> 
> That said, when resources decline, the 'rich' first keep most of the wealth, and then all of it.  So, you'd have a noble class slowly abandoning agriculture, sinking what wealth they can into more urban professions.  So...your old aristocracy would become the new mercantile oligarchs, more or less.
> 
> Also, quite a few other factors in play, but with the old vegetation stripped out and a rainy climate, there will be a lot of erosion.  Odds are that some fertile soil might end up not so much 'depleted' as 'relocated' several miles downstream. Likewise, once the land is abandoned, new vegetation will start to appear - nothing that would interest farmers, but still...there.  After a few generations of neglect, a new forest would appear.  Being new growth, rather than old growth, all sorts of critters would find homes amidst the shrubbery.



Okay, the same people would still stay in charge - the system would just begin to change (provided that my "environmental catastrophe" is long-lasting).

So if this kingdom was located in a European setting, the change in agriculture and urbanization would happen slowly and not be as devastating as tropical deforestation. Kind of. 
Yes, I can imagine that the trees would grow back after the soil has rested for a couple of generations, but would they ever compare to the ancient, giant trees that once covered the place? Also, if farmers leave their fields in the lowlands for a while the places could turn into swamps as a result of flooding. 
And if the sea has extremely strong (possibly magical) winds that blow inwards, the lack of cover could become problematic. Vegetation tends to stay small in those types of conditions and the production would at least decrease. Is it somewhat realistic that storms start to make the place difficult to inhabit? The old, original trees were big enough and had roots deep enough to withstand them. I don't want to explain everything with magic but the ancient forest must have had something special about it.

Lots of factors indeed, I can't really talk about depletion in this case, but what if the relocated fertile soil mostly ended up in lakes downstream? Wouldn't it be pretty much useless there? (And luring out evil amphibians)


Thanks for all the help, folks


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## Terry Greer (Sep 25, 2014)

If the local area becomes unsustainable for agriculture then the city also becomes unsustainable unless there's a way of bringing in supplies on an industrial scale. That then makes the city very vulnerable to disturbances of that traffic. It's an interesting concept. It could be a city either on the cusp , or just beyond it on the great slide, towards being abandoned.


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## Incanus (Sep 25, 2014)

I think I'm out of my league here, but I was wondering about another development amid all these land issues.  Since the location is on a coast, might there have been an effort to reclaim some of the fertile land by trying to set up polders?  Like in Denmark?  Maybe this could be a part of the boom/bust cycle.

This setting sounds interesting and well thought out.  Keep it up!


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## ThinkerX (Sep 25, 2014)

Ok...

Corner of the world I live in is the Western Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, which is covered in a dense layer of coniferous forest.  A few thousand years ago, most of this area was under a kilometer thick glacier. (I live within...call it 100 kilometers of the last remnants of the ice-sheets that covered much of north America - not Glaciers - ice fields).  When the ice first retreated, the land was fairly barren.  Started out as rocks, grass, and shrubs, pretty much.  But once they got started, the conifers (birch, cottonwood, and spruce) spread very rapidly.    Soil quality wasn't really an issue.

Case in point from my own experience:  my parents were among the last homesteaders in this particular area.  With homesteading, you claimed a 160 acre parcel, then 'proved' it by planting and growing crops on a certain percentage of that property.  Once 'proved', you then had the opportunity to buy the land, albeit at a steep discount.  My father cleared off a large stretch of land to plant wheat (at least I think it was wheat, might have been barley).  His harvests, to put it mildly, were...not good.  But he wasn't interested in making a profit, he was interested in 'proving' his claim.  So, after a few years, he let the cleared off land remain fallow.  So, I grew up looking at former cropland turned to meadow.  By the time I was a teenager, those meadows had saplings popping up in them anywhere from 1 to 4 meters tall.  Now, almost fifty years after he gave up farming, that 'cropland' is now forest, and those saplings now stand as much as 20 meters tall.  THIS from land where conventional crops pretty much failed altogether.  I should also point out some of these meadows were 'wet' - about one step shy of being marshland.  

That said, while normal grains don't do very well here in Alaska (except, maybe for barley), certain types of vegetables do very well.  We grew bumper crops of potatoes at the homestead, and plants like cabbage and lettuce do pretty good as well.  (this is a part of the world where hobby gardeners grow thousand pound cabbages....hmm...call it 200+ kilo's.


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## Northern winds (Sep 26, 2014)

Seems like a nice place to grow up, ThinkerX, I have to admit I’m a bit jealous!

And to clarify, agriculture and deforestation are good things in many cases, but they can go wrong depending on what factors are at play.
So if ordinary trees in a boreal forest are cut down, and the land turned into cropland, trees usually just grow back in a reasonable amount of time. (Biodiversity might be a bit impacted if the process is repeated I think, but not as much as in rainforests) But what about if there's like, unusually frequent and heavy rainfall in the place?

I don’t know much about farming, I'm just guessing, but the impact of crops seems different than livestock overgrazing. This could play a large part and be worth researching.


Now I have two kingdoms on separate locations:

*Kingdom A*
- Located in an ancient rain forest (or similar) with extremely big trees
- Frequent rainfall
- Shallow nutrient cycle (when the forest is gone, nutrients disappear)
- The people cut/burnt down all of the trees to meet their unsustainable demands
- The cleared farmland is used for crops/livestock grazing
  - Erosion
  - Disturbances in local weather patterns
  - Desertification
  - Semi-magical winds start to cause problems
  - Impact on local wildlife
   - Urbanization and poverty (dependence on trade?)
(- People begin fishing. Fish dies.)
     - Quick boom/bust effect

    > Deforestation can be blamed
   (> Over-fishing can be blamed)


*Kingdom B*
- Located in an ancient deciduous forest with extremely big trees
- A couple of valleys
- Frequent rainfall
- Soil is a lot better compared to tropical forests
  - Although there are great demands for production, it’s technically somewhat sustainable due to good soil quality
  - When the original, special trees are cut down, new ordinary ones start to grow in some places
   - However, the new trees are not big enough to protect from magical winds
   - Impact on local wildlife, however not as big with the tropical deforestation
   - The land is overgrazed by livestock (very important factor in Kingdom B!)
   - Local rainfall stays the same, though
   - Since rainfall is very heavy, nutrients are slowly starting to wash away
   - Nutrients are slowly relocated and end up in lakes downstream/the sea
   - Lakes become eutrophic after a while, fish dies
   - Polders are built to take advantage of some of the relocated coastal nutrients
    - Risk of flooding due to polders?
    - Urbanization and poverty
      - Slow process, not much boom/bust effect, negative effects could have been minimized a lot (but they weren’t)

    > Deforestation alone can’t be blamed. However, I guess this depends a lot on the magical-seawind-factor.

I came up with another thing that can contribute in Kingdom B’s case: alchemists discover semi-magical agrochemicals that disturb the balance.

Incanus, yes, polders could be useful. I have no idea what I should call them in Swedish, though, haha!


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## psychotick (Sep 26, 2014)

Hi,

Slightly different scenario perhaps but have you looke at the Easter Islands - the ones with the giant statues and no people. The reason the people died out or left is attributed to deforrestation on the islands. They were warrior tribes at war. The statues were their symbol of their power and designed to scare off enemies. But to build them, and move them into place they needed logs. So they cut down all their trees to erect these protective statues, and deforested their islands.

So no trees meant no boats for fishing. It caused the loss of land birds and sea birds, which meant more food losses. And you got a major population decline as a result.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Nihal (Sep 26, 2014)

I suspect that the regular tropical forest soil wouldn't be able to hold more than two harvests. They could have started with crops, but could quickly turn to livestock if they wished to keep producing and didn't artificially fertilize/rotated crops properly.

Erosion can happen in forested areas too, that's the rains at work. If you surround rivers with buildings you're asking for trouble, because you're altering how the water is drained in the area and this water *has* to go somewhere. When it goes it drags everything else in its way, whole hillsides with buildings or forest. That's the thing with deforestation and erosion, actually: accumulated water and nothing to hold all this soil together.

Even after deforestation it could rain regularly. Compared to the north of the world down here we have only two seasons: "Hot and rainy" and "A bit colder and a bit drier". The hot and rainy means hot days and rain at the end of the most of them, and at least one big storm with howling winds, more lightnings you've probably seen in a whole month and a rainfall volume that was supposed to fall over the course of two months, not in a couple of hours. The worst happen when they _don't_ last just a couple of hours.

To give you an idea: In the last ten years approximately seven tragedies linked to the summer rains happened in my country.

This is what happen:



Spoiler: Big images
















Can you imagine the height of the water?















*Desertification and Winds*

Desertification depends on the topology and winds dynamics. It won't necessarily be dry, nor look like the classic desert. To do that you must have a "sands source" as well, I reckon. It's unlikely that the mere deforestation and cultivation would prevent the natural undergrowth of reclaiming these places and turning them into at least grasslands, you must have a really intensive use of the soil, depleting it completely.

If you look at the world map you'll see that many deserts are close to mountain ranges. These mountains proportionate the desert conditions, blocking humid winds. Here in the northeast the most of the rain comes from the ocean, but there are mountains, hence the dry climate behind them. It has been always dry, with the original vegetation or not.

In the south you have the same thing, humid winds from the ocean and mountains, but the winds also come from farther south, from the antarctic circle. Not matter how many forests you cut down it'll keep raining, a little coming from the ocean and big, pontual cold masses of air coming from those icy regions. These cold masses are mostly "dry", but they accumulate water when crossing the ocean in the polar circle and precipitate when shocking against mountains or going over areas with hot air (hot air, up, humid colder air, down).


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## ThinkerX (Sep 26, 2014)

'Kingdom B' sounds a fair bit like Southeastern Alaska and coastal British Columbia: old growth forest and lots of wet weather.  Thing is, while magnificent to look at, the giant trees in old growth forest tend to choke out a lot of other things that may otherwise be living there.  You want forage for critters, you want not so old forest: preferably places that were hit by major forest fires a decade or three earlier.  That way, you not only get trees growing back, but lots of grass and shrubbery for critters to munch on.  Not only that, aforementioned critters will be leaving nutrient rich 'deposits' behind as they look for things to munch on.  (Grass is always greener over the septic tank.)  

Plus...water moves things around.  Where do the rivers (in either kingdom) originate?  If they arise in an area noted for certain types of volcanic activity, or a glacier, they'll also be bringing new nutrients into the area as well as sweeping old ones out.

Other thing to keep in mind: without a food source - either local or from VERY reliable imports - kingdom A WILL collapse before it can develop into a trade state.  If the situation is chronic enough, large sections of kingdom A's populace will move somewhere else, either as refugees or colonists.


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## Northern winds (Sep 27, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> 'Kingdom B' sounds a fair bit like Southeastern Alaska and coastal British Columbia: old growth forest and lots of wet weather.  Thing is, while magnificent to look at, the giant trees in old growth forest tend to choke out a lot of other things that may otherwise be living there.  You want forage for critters, you want not so old forest: preferably places that were hit by major forest fires a decade or three earlier.  That way, you not only get trees growing back, but lots of grass and shrubbery for critters to munch on.  Not only that, aforementioned critters will be leaving nutrient rich 'deposits' behind as they look for things to munch on.  (Grass is always greener over the septic tank.)
> 
> Plus...water moves things around.  Where do the rivers (in either kingdom) originate?  If they arise in an area noted for certain types of volcanic activity, or a glacier, they'll also be bringing new nutrients into the area as well as sweeping old ones out.
> 
> Other thing to keep in mind: without a food source - either local or from VERY reliable imports - kingdom A WILL collapse before it can develop into a trade state.  If the situation is chronic enough, large sections of kingdom A's populace will move somewhere else, either as refugees or colonists.



I want the kingdom to thrive in the beginning but then collapse.
Oh, big trees block out sunshine for other, smaller plants? I can use that.




Nihal said:


> I suspect that the regular tropical forest soil wouldn't be able to hold more than two harvests. They could have started with crops, but could quickly turn to livestock if they wished to keep producing and didn't artificially fertilize/rotated crops properly.
> 
> Erosion can happen in forested areas too, that's the rains at work. If you surround rivers with buildings you're asking for trouble, because you're altering how the water is drained in the area and this water *has* to go somewhere. When it goes it drags everything else in its way, whole hillsides with buildings or forest. That's the thing with deforestation and erosion, actually: accumulated water and nothing to hold all this soil together.
> 
> ...



That flooding was insane. I remember that my teacher showed a video about it.

I don’t remember much about global wind/rain circulation… But I think I understand some of the basics now. I’m not really sure wether I should invest more time in researching it. Nevertheless, weather in general tends to be emphasized in my story. 

I’m starting to settle for a Mediterranean-like location, since desertification mostly happens in arid places/some sort of macchia or shrubbery will appear. It will be possible to draw parallels to the Roman Empire. 

A tropical setting would offer some of the effects I’m looking for. However, in that case l need to research a lot more, and placing it that near the equator is simply a bit inconvenient to my plot. That said, I could still use this idea later on if I feel the need to.




psychotick said:


> Hi,
> 
> Slightly different scenario perhaps but have you looke at the Easter Islands - the ones with the giant statues and no people. The reason the people died out or left is attributed to deforrestation on the islands. They were warrior tribes at war. The statues were their symbol of their power and designed to scare off enemies. But to build them, and move them into place they needed logs. So they cut down all their trees to erect these protective statues, and deforested their islands.
> 
> ...



Hi! That's a great example.


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## K.S. Crooks (Oct 6, 2014)

*Deforested Kingdom*

Your initial description of the people's use of the land reminded me of the Easter Islands and how people mismanaged the resources there. A euthrophic lake becomes so covered with algae that little sunlight reaches the bottom, causing plant life below and then animals to die. It can also fill with sediment and become a marsh then fertile farm land. If your building are wood they can begin to breakdown and return nutrients to the soil.

Your idea that the rich stay rick or increase wealth while the poor get poorer is dead on. this is what led to the French Revolution, Russian Revolution and several other revolutions around the world. Your story sound very interesting. Best of luck to you.


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## Bruce McKnight (Oct 24, 2014)

Another factor to consider is fire. If there are no trees, what do they use to heat their homes and cook their food?


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