Page "Deforestation" Paragraph 66

The famous silting up of the harbor for Bruges, which moved port commerce to Antwerp, also followed a period of increased settlement growth ( and apparently of deforestation ) in the upper river basins.

In early medieval Riez in upper Provence, alluvial silt from two small rivers raised the riverbeds and widened the floodplain, which slowly buried the Roman settlement in alluvium and gradually moved new construction to higher ground ; concurrently the headwater valleys above Riez were being opened to pasturage.