The Lake District is a living landscape that has evolved over millions of years, and still continues to change, with or without human involvement.
Humans are major agents of biological weathering, as are plants and animals.
Plants induce biological weathering as their roots penetrate the ground and allow water to penetrate the soil. Roots are also strong enough to force open rock fissures, breaking up large jointed blocks into smaller fragments in a process of physical weathering. Water penetrating into the ground is a major agent of chemical weathering, releasing minerals by dissolving the cement binding sedimentary rock particles together. Natural erosion is, of course, an essential process to the maintenance of soil fertility, for without it freshly weathered minerals, which are a source of plant nutrients, would not be available in the root zones, and soils would become deeper but, at the surface, would consist largely of strongly leached clays. Though agents of biological weathering, the overall effect of vegetation is to reduce erosion dramatically, as the roots bind the soil grains together.