O Baixo Mondego: um pouco de História

Natural to anthropogenic forcing in the Holocene evolution of three coastal lagoons (Caldas da Rainha valley, western Portugal)

“…The coast of the area was under the Norman (Vikings) raids threat (till the 11th century; Coelho, 1989), and Alfeizera˜o (an Arabic toponym) and Ó bidos were the main localities (Barbosa, 1992). The so-called reconquista (reconquest) of Iberia from the Moors progressed southward from the Asturias region.…”

“…The considered region witnessed new settlements by locals and immigrants and significant enlargement of farmland, largely reclaimed from forests (Coelho, 1997;Barbosa, 1992); swamps were drained, mainly by the Cistercian's labour and expertise. Furthermore, until the Industrial Revolution (in this region well into the 19th century) wood was the basic manufacture and building material, as well as fuel for domestic and industrial activities.…”

“…Such situation triggered a regional demographic decline, and even the expansion of the Alcobac -a Abbey stagnated (Barbosa, 1992;Mattoso, 1992c). In the first half of the 14th century, several bad crops and the Black Death (plague), particularly in 1348, and several internal wars produced a crisis in the agricultural landscape as the population was severely reduced (up to 50% in all Portugal; Coelho, 1997;Sousa, 1992). Consequently, in all western Iberia many cultivated lands were regained by the natural vegetation (Desprat et al, 2003), reducing the rhythm of silting of estuaries and lagoons and inducing a decrease in sediment supply to the coast, marked by the delay in the accretion rate of growing spits in the Portuguese shore .…”