What the fate of ancient cities can teach us about surviving climate
change
Unlike surrounding rural areas, ancient cities failed to pivot and become resilient

Date:
September 28, 2021
Source:
University of Sydney
Summary:
Why did some ancient Khmer and Mesoamerican cities collapse
between 900- 1500CE, while their rural surrounds continued to
prosper? Intentional adaptation to climate changed conditions may
be the answer, suggests a new study.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Cities and their hinterlands must build resilience to survive climate
stress; this is the grave warning emanating from a study of ancient civilisations and climate change.


==========================================================================
From 900 to 1500CE, Khmer cities in mainland Southeast Asia (including
Angkor) and Maya cities in Mesoamerica collapsed, coinciding with periods
of intense climate variability. While the ceremonial and administrative
urban cores of many cities were abandoned, the surrounding communities
may have endured because of long-term investment in resilient landscapes.

"They created extensive landscapes of terraced and bunded (embanked to
control water flow) agricultural fields that acted as massive sinks for
water, sediment and nutrients," said lead author Associate Professor
Daniel Penny, from the University of Sydney School of Geosciences. "This long-term investment in soil fertility and the capture and storage
of water resources may have allowed some communities to persist long
after the urban cores had been abandoned." He and his colleague at the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Timothy Beach, came to this
conclusion via a review of relevant archaeological and environmental information from Southeast Asia and Mesoamerica.

At the ancient city of Angkor in modern Cambodia, for example, the administrative and ceremonial core was progressively abandoned over
several decades, culminating in a series of catastrophic droughts in
the 14th and 15th century, but the surrounding agricultural landscapes
may have persisted through these episodes of climatic stress.

Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
their study provides a rough roadmap for resilience in the face of
climate change.

Lessons for modern-day rural and urban areas These historical cases of
urban collapse emphasise that long-term and large- scale investment in landscape resilience -- such as improving water storage and retention, improving soil fertility, and securing biodiversity -- can better enable
both urban and rural communities to tolerate periods of climatic stress.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes this will become
more frequent and more intense in many parts of the world over the
coming century.

"We often think of these historic events as disasters, but they also
have much to teach us about persistence, resilience and continuity in
the face of climate variability," said Associate Professor Penny.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Sydney. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Dan Penny, Timothy P. Beach. Historical socioecological
transformations
in the global tropics as an Anthropocene analogue. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 2021; 118 (40): e2022211118 DOI:
10.1073/ pnas.2022211118 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210928102247.htm

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