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[ANiMA XI]

Hello there! I just got a silly question; when I did embark at the zone im currently playing all was green grass and everything seemed fine. But since start continously but slowly a path of Red Sand did start to appear almost everywhere in the outside areas of my fort. Sounds rare but seems that has something in common with most usual paths my dwarfes do because it started to draw a straight line infront of my entrance... Where will this situation take us? Is it dangerous? What causes it? I did read that can be related to Aquifers but i dunno in what way. Aquifers are a few layers deeper than that. Thanks in advance

Pic in the spoiler

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[NullForceOmega]

When dwarves or animals path over a tile frequently, the vegetation wears down, eventually forming a path of the underlying soil, just like the real world.  If nothing walks on that tile for some time, it will regrow.

[HungThir]

if you pasture your grazing animals in an area that your citizens/visitors constantly trample through, they may have trouble finding enough to eat

[delphonso]

NullForce got it right. It's nothing to worry about, and will return to normal if you lock everyone inside for long enough.

I will admit that it looks a bit terrifying with your tileset... Looks like a bloody path going into the fortress, which wouldn't be unusual for DF...

[KevinM]

It should also be mentioned that sand is just sand. There are a variety of colors.   White, yellow, red, black and tan.  The colors don't mean anything, they're just a layer of ground (or the surface of it).  That it's red is just coincidental, and just tends to be a bit more jarring when you have to make sure it's not blood.

The reason for the aquifer part is that where there is sand, there is often water (or was water), and so has a strong correlation with an aquifer layer somewhere nearby (not necessarily that level).  In the overworld, when sand is the first layer, the aquifer won't be there anyway.

As mentioned, pathing and animals can wear away the grass (which can cause foraging animals to starve), so you'll want to re-pasture those animals to another grassy area.  There are some creatures that don't cause grass crushing, and I think that includes caravans. 

[Malroc The Valiant]

Will grass grow back in mountain biomes?

[Malroc The Valiant]

Just looked it up on the wiki, mountain grass wont regrow. Currently having that issue myself.
"In this version, mountains are covered with grass when first encountered, but if the grass is removed (whether due to grazing, construction, or simple trampling), it will never grow back. Keep this in mind when designating pastures, lest your animals starve."

[Starver]

I always tend to designate 'strips' of pasture, assign gazers singly or perhaps paired (adjusting as foal/calves arrive) with room to newly strip the next patch for any creature notably over-grazing their prior strip (then dezoned), and so on...

I've not noticed (soil-substrated) worn-out pastures being irrecoverable for later cycling pastures back over the oldest areas again. But being soil rather than sand beneath might mean I'm not subject to drought conditions that stunt the regrowth rate (I'll have fairly frequent rain, where perhaps the sandy-lands don't) so I don't notice the problem significantly as I make use of dozens of rotating zones for quite a few fewer creatures upon them.

(Or maybe it's just that the meta-paddock with the strips in often isn't a 'through route' to anywhere but pasturing/depasturing activities, which is another possible issue to over-damage the land in the first place.)

[Leonidas]

The wiki is correct about grass not growing in the mountains. I once tried flooding the surface in a mountain embark. I got lots of mud, but no grass.

[KevinM]

Sounds like an emergency dive into the caverns to get some cave growth before the mountain grass is completely gone.

[mikekchar]

I just want to point out (since a lot of people don't know) that you can feed grazers if they are on a restraint or in a cage.  Just enable the "Animal Care" labour on some dwarfs and they will feed restrained grazers with vegetables or prepared foods (no matter what it's made of).  Factory farms are a thing in DF!  Dwarfs get a good thought from feeding animals.