The Impact of Land Use and the Remedy of Island Civilization

          The prospect of an “island civilization” discussed in my previous post is a possible solution to the problems that human impact on the environment have caused. Usage of land is one of the biggest issues that an “island civilization” would be able to take care of. In an “island civilization” only a small portion of the planet would be affected by humans and the damage that has already been caused by the large scale agriculture necessary to sustain the world's grossly inflated population could be steadily remedied. Australia is a prime example of an area where land clearing, primarily used for agriculture, has harmed the environment due to the increased prevalence of dryland salinity. In an “island civilization” this would not be an issue as the world population would be roughly a quarter of its current size resulting in less agricultural demand and the reduced demand could be met through methods of using engineered vertical space for agricultural purposes rather than impacting a larger portion of the environment and thus contributing to greatly reduced land use.

Included below is more information on the global consequences of land use

More Information: http://landscape.forest.wisc.edu/courses/readings/Foley_etal_2005.pdf