Land Clearance

Land clearance can be done in two methods.





Deforestaion and demolishing of old buildings











Deforestation is the clearance of naturally occurring forests by logging and burning. By clearing these forests, there would be more land for further developments. Such as housing estaes, shopping malls, or other facillities.









Adavntages:

• Empty land is created and can be developed for many uses.



• In an unmanaged forest, net carbon dioxide consumption is actually zero. This is because when trees die, they rot, and in doing so release all of the carbon stored over their lives, to combine with oxygen in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide.



• There are economic advantages. Lumber products are one of the most staple constructive materials in human society. Whether it's raw lumber used for making tables and houses, or paper and other wood by-products, we simply cannot live without the use of lumber. Wood is one of the most basic natural resources, and unlike steel and stone, it is renewable simply by growing more trees. The only real trick to balancing it's consumption is to grow more trees to replace the ones taken.

Disadvantages:

• Deforestation can cause many plants and animals to lose their habitat and become extinct. The food chain may be destroyed.



• There will be soil erosion and the soil would be washed away into nearby water bodies, such as rivers and lakes.



• Erosion’s removal of the upper horizons of the soil results in a reduction in soil quality i.e. a diminution of the soil’s suitability for agriculture or other vegetation. This is because the eroded upper horizons tend to be the most nutrient-rich. Also, because the finest constituents of eroded soil tends to be transported furthest, eroded soils become preferentially depleted of their finer fraction over time; this often reduces their water-holding capacity.

Demolishing of old buildings can create more land and which also means more buildings can be built or more land is available.

Advantages

• Similar to those of deforestation. old unwanted buildings can be torn down to make room for new ones.

Disadvantages

• Some buildings have historical value in them and by demolishing buildings of bygone times, we wipe out every vestige of the past forever. No one would deny that there are many superb modern buildings which are truly representative of the very best architecture of our age. But these are rarely the utilitarian blocks which are to be found in many cities.