Current/Potential Geomorphological Impacts
Mitigating anthropogenic impacts
The Viking settlers were the first to take corrective action when they finally realized what was happening. Agriculture animals such as cows, and the ecologically destructive pigs and goats had to be abandoned. This also meant the abandonment of the fragile highlands used for grazing. Groups of neighboring farms cooperated in jointly making decisions critical for preventing erosion, such as the decision about when in the late spring the grass growth warranted taking the sheep up to communally owned high-altitude mountain pastures for the summer, and when in the fall to bring the sheep back down. An entire government department has as its charge to attempt to retain soil, regrow the woodlands, revegetate the interior, and regulate sheep stocking rates. (Diamond, 2005) The Icelandic government believes that the damage developed in the past could re-develop in the future, and that knowledge about these landforms and processes are the best way to avoid repeating the same mistakes. This understanding is very necessary when one acknowledges that, "...the effects of erosion that began 1,130 years ago are obvious, where most of the vegetation and half of the soil have already been lost"(Diamond, 2005). With 73% of the modern land surface of Iceland being effected by erosion, one can understand why Icelanders feel that any change, big or small, will much more likely make things worse rather than better. All one has to do is look at their history of affect to understand this mentality.