Custom «Land Cover Change» Essay Paper

Clare Valley has long been regarded as one of the most beautiful wine regions in Australia. With its mild climate and wonderful sceneries, Clare is an interesting site for geological studies. In recent years, from 1983 till 2005, the region has been changing in terms of its climate, soil development, vegetation, and demographics. These changes have influenced both agriculture and the wine industry and provided the foundation of how the region would look like in the future. For this reason, the short site inspection of Clare has been conducted within this research. European settlement in the early nineteenth century brought the booming economic development to Clare Valley. Wine production as well as other farming activities became the key sectors of the region’s economy and determined the scope of development for the region for the period between 1983 and 2005. The location of Clare maintains its position as important transport route and, at the same time, popular travel spot. Tourism has been developing in the last two decades of the twentieth century, and it is still a very popular travel site for visitors. Due to its moderate continental climate, Clare Valley has hot summer season and cold winter season. At the same time, Clare is located in high altitude which provides cooler nights even during the summer. However, during the last decades, the closeness to the ocean helped the climate remain moderate and maintain climate stability. The soils of Clare vary from red to brown grey and rocky soils. At the same time, the general problem is that the soils lack volcanic activity in the whole South Australia. During the last thirty years, this problem became vital for the wine growers. Vegetation of Clare between 1983 and 2005 has changed with the introduction of new grape varieties and the additional usage of such farmer products as beans and canola. The farmer activity changes the overall land structure in recent years. Moreover, as Bestland, Green, and Rivett note, ‘at Clare Valley, the geomorphic context is that of a ridge and valley landscape where resistant units comprise the ridges and less resistant units comprise the valley’ (2003 p. 16).