Land Erosion

-Abbie

            There is an ever growing excess of issues that the agriculture world experiences daily. One that is current and will impact the industry and environment throughout the future, is the degrading of soil. Land degradation is defined as: “deterioration in the quality of land, its topsoil, vegetation, and/or water resources, caused usually by excessive or inappropriate exploitation” (business dictionary). This is an issue in terms of growing crops for us to eat with the rapid growth of our population. The US has some of the best topsoil in the world, which is why they produce so many crops are exported. Topsoil is the top six inches on the Earth’s soil. There has been found through a global survey that throughout the entire world that soil is degrading due to human life and how much we over use it.

         Some of the causes are from deforestation, pollution from fossil fuels, overgrazing with animals. The problem is we need to take care of our soil because without it we will have no vegetation. The topsoil provides nutrients for the vegetation to grow, therefore when it erodes it moves the topsoil and creates issues. Much of erosion is due to human activities in farming, logging and building houses or businesses. However, erosion is caused from wind and water as well. Another problem humans cause with soils is caused by irrigation. Irrigating fields leaves behind dissolved salts that clump and can cause plant roots to take in water. Along with this the soil takes away nutrients from the crop so it can not grow and give us sustainable vegetative cover.

         The question we have to ask ourselves is can we work to bring the soil back? We need it for life, what can we do about saving the soil? Farmers can practice better techniques, such as rotation crops and not tilling the land as much. However, if the land is extremely eroded then it is a lost cause. Humans need to use technology to better the land quality instead of ruining it. If we continue at this rate the topsoil will be forever damaged and we will not be able to recover it. Then the soil will not be able to produce crops for the ever growing world population. 

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/land_deg.html

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/land-degradation.html