It’s not only construction. It’s also about having windbreaks (ie: hedgerows, small clumps or full lines of bushy trees, etc) that stop the soil from blowing away in the wind.
I know this because I grew up on the Canadian prairies where backhoes yearly dig up all the topsoil that’s accumulated in the ditches, which the farmers then respread on their fields.
There are a lot more windbreaks now than when I was a child.