Plant Sciences Commons^™

Global Synthesis Of The Classifications, Distributions, Benefits And Issues Of Terracing, Wei Wei, Die Chen, Lixin Wang, Stefani Daryanto, Liding Chen, Yang Yu, Yonglong Lu, Ge Sun, Tianjiao Feng

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

For thousands of years, humans have created different types of terraces in different sloping conditions, meant to mitigate flood risks, reduce soil erosion and conserve water. These anthropogenic landscapes can be found in tropical and subtropical rainforests, deserts, and arid and semiarid mountains across the globe. Despite the long history, the roles of and the mechanisms by which terracing improves ecosystem services (ESs) remain poorly understood. Using literature synthesis and quantitative analysis, the worldwide types, distributions, major benefits and issues of terracing are presented in this review. A key terracing indicator, defined as the ratio of different ESs under terraced …