Nepal: Terraced Agriculture:

Typical landscape in the foothills of the Himalayas.


Section through the hillside with dotted line showing contour line showing original hillside.


For most crops, especially rice which needs to grow in standing water, a flat surface is required. Therefore on a hillside the farmer needs to maximise the flat area, and, in section, the dimension x.


The easiest way to do this is to half-fill, half-excavate the hillside such that the area of A = area of B.


The actual limit to the dimension x is the height of the stone retaining walls, c, which has a maximum of about 2 metres, above which the structural integrity of the stone deteriorates.

The imprint of human development and the trace of nature encapsulated in a simple gesture, proliferated to take over entire landscapes.