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Rice terrace in Indonesia

Diagram showing Inca terrace engineering for agriculture.

Terraces are used in farming to cultivate sloped land. Graduated terrace steps are commonly used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain. Terraced fields decrease erosion and surface runoff, and are effective for growing crops requiring much water, such as rice.

Terraced paddy fields are used widely in rice farming in east, south, and southeast Asia, as well as other places. Drier-climate terrace farming is common throughout the Mediterranean Basin, e.g., in Cadaqués, Catalonia, where they were used for vineyards, olive trees, cork oak, etc., on Mallorca, or in Cinque Terre, Italy.

In the South American Andes, farmers have used terraces known as andenes for over a thousand years to farm potatoes, maize, and other native crops. Terraced farming followed complex systems developed over centuries by Inca engineers to conserve scarce water in the mountains. The terraces were built to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops. The Inca used a system of canals and aqueducts to direct water through dry land and increase fertility^{[citation needed]}. These terraced farms are found wherever mountain villages have existed in the Andes. They provided food necessary to support the populations of great Inca cities and religious centres such as Machu Picchu.

Terracing is also used for gardening on sloping terrain; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may have been built on an artificial mountain with stepped terraces like those on a ziggurat^{[citation needed]}. At the seaside Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, the villa gardens of Julius Caesar's father-in-law fell away to give pleasant and varied views of the Bay of Naples.

Terraced fields are common in islands with vigorous slopes. The Canary Islands present a complex system of terraces covering the landscape from the coastal irrigated plantations to the dry fields in the highlands. These terraces, which are named "cadenas" (chains), are built with stone walls of skillful design, which include attached stairs and channels^{[citation needed]}.

In old English, a terrace was also called a "lynch" (lynchet) and there is a fine example of a Lynch Mill in Lyme Regis, for which the water arrives via a river ducted along a terrace. This set-up was used in steep hilly areas in the UK^{[citation needed]}.

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  The Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao, Philippines.

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  Jatiluwih rice terrace in Bali, Indonesia.

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  Terraced hay fields in the Upper Mississippi River basin during the 1930s.

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  Rice cultivation, Lower Himalayas, Nepal.

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  Terraced fields in Sa Pa, Vietnam.

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  Longsheng Rice Terrace in Longsheng county, Guangxi Province, southern China.

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  Abstract pattern of terraced rice fields in Yuanyang County, Yunnan, China

See also[link]

• Anden
• Satoyama
• Terrace garden

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Agricultural terraces

• Terrace Fields around the World