Environmental Challenges Essay Example

Environmental Challenges Essay Example Environmental Challenges Paper Environmental Challenges Paper Tenochtitlan was a city in which the Gods of his polytheistic civilization told them they must settle. Tenochtitlan is an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. This created environmental challenges for the Aztecs. The Aztecs had to build a large civilization with this island that had limited space. These people needed a lot Of room to farm, but there was very minimal space to do this. If there was not a lot of farmland, it would lead to a limited supply of food. There was also a limited amount of freshwater. Freshwater was necessary because the Aztecs needed clean, fresh water to drink. Since Tenochtitlan was an island in the middle of a lake, there was only so much water in which they could actually drink because half of the lake contained salt water. Limited trade and travel made it difficult to get off the island and be in contact with other people. Aztec civilization was also in need of people for human sacrifices. They did not want to kill their own people so they needed to find a way to get off the island and out of Lake Texcoco. The Aztec civilization overcame its environmental challenges. Since their civilization was on Tenochtitlan, an island, in Lake Texcoco, there was limited ravel and trade. To overcome this challenge, Aztecs built canals and causeways. A causeway is simply a road that is built over water and wet land. This allowed the people to get off Tenochtitlan and onto regular land where they could now travel to different places and trade their goods with other tribes. To eliminate the little amount of food in Tenochtitlan, farmers planted crops like maize in the lakes bottom. These plants were called Chinampas. A Chinampa is created when dirt is piled in rafts and anchored to the bottom of a lake. Chinampas are commonly referred to as floating gardens. ople would be conquered by the Aztecs which caused the Aztecs to obtain more land and food for their people. So they would have as much freshwater as possible, the Aztecs built dykes to divide the lakes freshwater and salt water. Aqueducts were also built to transport freshwater into the city. An aqueduct is a man-made channel that is used to transfer water. Lastly, the Aztecs would take other tribes prisoner. They did this because they needed people for human sacrifices. Human sacrifice occurs when a civilization kills people because of that civilizations religious beliefs. The Incas faced many environmental challenges due to the fact that they lived in the Andes Mountains. The Andes Mountains were very steep. Some of the mountain ranges did not have great soil and they could not plant their crops. For the crops they did have in the areas with good soil, it was very difficult to get the water needed to them. The mountainous land in which messengers had to cross made it difficult for the Inca. They had to cross over the mountains, deserts, and water. The messengers had enough trouble already since they have to run the whole way until they can stop. They would stop at the next station and pass the message on to the next person, similar to a relay. These messages needed to be delivered because if a person living in Cuzco, the Inca capital, needed to send a message to someone in the northern part of the empire, in modern day Ecuador, there would be no way to communicate. The Andes Mountains were not smooth and flat therefore, it was hard to transport goods. The Inca needed to find a way to transport their things, like potatoes and maize, which was easier than carrying everything a little bit at a time. The Inca civilization overcame its environmental challenges. Since some of the Andes Mountains had good soil for farming, the Inca used terrace farming. Terrace farming is when you cut flat steps into the side of hills or mountains to grow crops. This type of farming gave the people flat farming area so they could plant their crops. The most common crop to the Inca was the potato. It was hard to bring the water to the Incas crops since they were located on the mountainsides. Irrigation systems had to be built so the crops could grow. The Incas grew so much food that there was a surplus of food nd everyone in the civilization was able to eat. Communication was very hard during this civilization. Messengers had to run across the Andes, cross water, and cross deserts. To make this easier for them, women would tie rope bridges together and when they were finished and stable, they would be able to cross over these geographic features quickly and easily. The messages the messengers carried was known as a quipu. A quipu is a device that was used for recording information and consisted Of various threads and knots. The knots were tied in different ways. The number and position of knots as well as the color of each thread represented information about commercial goods and resources. Lastly, it had been difficult to transport all of the Incas goods. They would use llamas to help them with this. Since the llamas lived in the Andes, they could manage to walk on the steep and jagged mountains. The Incas would place things on the llamas back and it would then be brought wherever it needed to go. Two civilizations that overcame their environmental challenges are the Aztecs and Lake Texcoco and the Incas and the Andes Mountains. Civilizations ave often been provided with geographic problems that they have to overcome. An environmental challenge is a problem many civilizations face because the environment creates difficulties for their people. Environmental challenges may cause extreme difficulties at first, but after a civilization develops over time, they can find a way to overcome these obstacles. A civilization may develop in the middle of a lake, but roads can be built to overcome this. When a civilization develops in a mountain range, farmers can make steps in the mountains and use its soil to provide food for its entire population.