Soil Erosion and Agriculture: The Consequent Collapse of Mesopotamia
Student’s Name
University Affiliation

Introduction

Civilizations have come and gone. One of the immediate factor that led to the decline of some of these civilizations is the environmental variable. Mesopotamia is known to be the land located between rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Tigris was located in the northern part while the Euphrates was to the south. In Mesopotamia, rains were seasonal which means that the land flooded during winter and spring. Farming was the main economic activity with water being obtained from the two rivers. Besides, lucrative trade with the neighbors saw Mesopotamia grow to become a powerful empire. A network of canals was used to irrigate the land making Mesopotamia famous for Agrarian Revolution. Repeated innovations in irrigation are traceable back to Mesopotamia. A classic example is that of Sassanid who are credited for development of a novel system that ended up opening large areas of land to cultivation(Briggs, 2009). The invention comprised of intersecting canals that distributed water to enclosed polygons of variable sizes. It is evident that agriculture was the heart of economic activity in Mesopotamia. In this paper, the focus entails understanding how soil erosion as a factor of environmental variable led to the collapse of Mesopotamia.

Agriculture in Mesopotamia