From farm to gun and no way back: Habsburg gunpowder production in the eighteenth century and its impact on agriculture and soil fertility

Surplus, Scarcity and Soil Fertility in Pre-Industrial Austrian Agriculture—The Sustainability Costs of Inequality

“…In quantitative terms, though, animal manure made up for the most significant nutrient input to the soil systems. Depending on the livestock density and the efficiency of the manure management, 30%-90% of the total extracted nutrients could be replenished [17,59]. One way of efficiently managing nutrients is livestock keeping and feeding.…”

“…To close data gaps, we used as much site-specific information as possible, such as documents listing every single land parcel under direct Breuner cultivation [71]. For some of the more specific questions on ecological aspects of the demesne land use system, we had to rely on modelling assumptions derived from agro-ecology and socio-metabolic modelling (Güldner et al [17], Krausmann [59], and Guzmán Casado et al [72] give detailed descriptions of relevant conversion factors and modelling assumptions). Livestock grazing, for instance, is not reported within the accounting books.…”

“…Positive budgets indicate that N is accumulating in the soil, whereas negative nutrient budgets indicate soil N depletion, pushing the land use system towards agro-ecological disequilibrium. Natural inputs (e.g., N deposited via rainfall or non-symbiotic fixation) and outputs (e.g., N losses due to denitrification, leaching and erosion) were quantified following [15,17], albeit translated into site-specific information for the province of Lower Austria. Landlord and peasant management of N fluxes was estimated according to land use information available in historical sources.…”

“…We had to rely on assumptions from agro-ecology and socio-metabolic models to estimate some of the information required to perform the N balances. For instance, we followed Güldner, Krausmann, and Winiwarter [17] and used information on local feeding practices, the average number of days that animals were kept in stables, species-specific physiology and demographic change of the respective livestock species to estimate the amount of N retained in the livestock. After calculating N retention (and other losses) we arrived at the net amount of N available in manure, which we allocated to different types of land (mostly to cropland).…”

“…Tello et al [12] and Marull et al [13,14] have used SEM approaches to comprehensively study the evolution of land use changes and effects on local biodiversity. Also, flows of nutrients have been traced through agro-ecosystems to better understand issues of soil fertility [15][16][17][18]. Still, a vitally important aspect of (pre-industrial) socio-ecological systems has been widely under-researched.…”