Providence Canyon state park, with its 16 gullies reaching down to 150 feet and its soft soil shaded in orange, red, pink, and even purple tones, proved to be an interesting topic of discussion in class. The state park is located in south-west Georgia and is commonly referred to as Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon. The network of gorges, cliffs, plateaus, and pinnacles has attracted not only tourists but a host of academic attention.
Providence Canyon is regarded to be so spectacular because of its remarkable proof of anthropogenic devastation on nature. The canyons were once believed to be a natural phenomenon and in the 1930s, were even described as a gift from God (Sutter, 2010). Over time, however, Providence Canyon would be used to show the devastating effects human induced land-use change was having on the environment.
The park is located in Stewart Country, an area renowned for its history of human induced soil erosion (Sanders, 2015); grassland prairies were rapidly converted to cotton fields by settlers, where the region was eventually transformed into one of the richest areas of the plantation South (Terrill, 1958). However, agriculture was extensive and the soils became exhausted; south-eastern soils tend to be ultisols, commonly acidic and mineral deficient that are prone to exhaustion if not properly managed (Richter and Markewitz, 2001). Therefore, unsurprisingly, sustained cropping in tobacco, cotton, and corn depleted the soils and the canyons began forming in the early 1800s due to poor soil-management practices (Sanders, 2015).
Vegetation that once held soil in its place was removed, leaving exposed soil that was susceptible to the erosive effects of rainfall characteristic of the region. Furthermore, the top layer of soil was easily washed away, which left the less permeable clay horizon exposed; the soil became susceptible to destabilisation from below, producing caving, sloughing, and piping, while the exposed clay layer also decreased the infiltration rate, increasing surface flow and erosion (Sutter, 2010). Additionally, the erosivity of runoff was magnified by farmers ploughing up and down slopes that resulted in water to concentrate in furrows while simultaneously decreasing the infiltration capacity of the soil surface. Consequently, hillside ditches and poorly built and maintained terraces became gullies (Sutter, 2010).
To exacerbate the issue, rainfall in the southeast tends to concentrate in the Spring and early Summer when the cropped fields traditionally lacked vegetation cover to help protect against the erosivity of the rainfall (Sutter, 2010). Southern farmers did not have the resources, technology, and the networks to help decrease the major erosion problems. Similarly, the farmers lacked the motivation to deal with the issue; as long as there was land available, the farming practices continued and by 1860, Stewart County was producing 19,165 bales of cotton, ranking second amongst all the counties in Georgia (Sutter, 2010). Cotton production in the county peaked around 1890 but by the 1930s, the gullies were at the depth of their development (Magilligan and Stamp, 1997). The irony of apparently fine working lands and deep gullies had become especially apparent.
Providence Canyon demonstrates the power of human agency and our species’ ability to transform the landscape. Once Providence Canyon became a state park in 1971 (Sutter, 2010), it could be argued that it began to represent where we went wrong and consequently, now highlights our shortcomings, which in turn prevent us from inflicting such environmental damage again. On the other hand, we arguably started to celebrate the beauty of an environmental disaster. It is not hard to be amazed by the canyon’s beauty; if you were oblivious to its formation, it would be easy to be impressed at nature’s ability to carve out such intricate features. However, once I found out that Providence Canyon was a result of unsustainable farming practices, I was disappointed. In my opinion, the canyon signifies what happens when ideas and modes of production are implemented into complicated new environments without regard, restraints, or enthusiasm to pay attention and adapt accordingly. Nonetheless, I would love to be able to see Providence Canyon for myself.
References
Magilliga, F. and M.L. Stamp (1997) ‘Historical Land-Cover Changes and Hydrogeomorphic Adjustment in a Small Georgia Watershed,’ Annuals of the Association of American Geographers, 87, 614-635.
Richter, D.D. and D. Markewitz (2001) Understanding Soil Change: Soil Sustainability over Millennia, Centuries, and Decades, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sanders, S. (2015) Providence Canyon [Online]. Atlanta: New Georgia Encyclopedia. Available at: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/geography-environment/providence-canyon [Accessed 5th April 2017].
Sutter, P. (2010) ‘What Gullies Mean: Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon’, Journal of Southern History, 76, 579-616.
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