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A multidisciplinary study of the lake Bjäresjösjön (S Sweden): land-use history, soil erosion, lake trophy and lake-level fluctuations during the last 3000 years

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Abstract

The lake Bjäresjösjön, Southern Scania, Southern Sweden, was studied in the context of the project ‘The cultural landscape of the past 6000 years in Southern Sweden’. Pollen, plant macrofossils, diatoms, physical and chemical analysis, magnetic measurements and radiometric methods (210Pb, 14C) have been used to study palaeoecological changes, i.e. climate, land use, lake trophy and soil erosion during the past 3000 years. This multidisciplinary study shows striking responses of diatom communities, physical and chemical characteristics, sediment yields and magnetic parameters to land-use changes and lake-level fluctuations. Moreover, the latter are closely related to the settlement history at the site, inferred from archaeological records and historical sources.

Before 650 AD, the limnological development was affected mainly by lake-level fluctuations, but partly also by human impact (extensive forest clearings and dominant pastoral farming). With the expansion of arable farming (around 650 AD), human impact on the landscape was the major factor influencing soil erosion processes in the catchment and limnological changes in the lake.

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Gaillard, M.J., Dearing, J.A., El-Daoushy, F. et al. A multidisciplinary study of the lake Bjäresjösjön (S Sweden): land-use history, soil erosion, lake trophy and lake-level fluctuations during the last 3000 years. Hydrobiologia 214, 107–114 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00050939

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