Question

soil erosion essay with many points ​

Answer 1

Answer:

Soil erosion is always enhanced when the cleared area of land is on a steep slope, because this allows gully erosion to take place. The soil on slopes, too, is easily moved by gravity when it is loosened. The effects of shifting cultivation, overgrazing and deforestation are all worse on steeply sloping land.

Answer 2

Explanation:

All land use activities, particularly those which are poorly managed, involve destruction or disturbance, to a greater or lesser extent, of natural and semi-natural ecosystems. Almost invariably, however, it is those ecosystems, in equilibrium with their environment, which offer most effective protection to the soil that supports them.

A major consequence of ecosystem destruction and disturbance is that of soil degradation. This has been defined as the decline in soil quality caused through its misuse by human activity. More specifically it refers to the decline in soil productivity through adverse changes in nutrient status, organic matter structural stability and concentrations of electrolytes and toxic chemicals.

Soil degradation incorporates a number of environmental problems, some of which are interrelated, including erosion compaction, water excess and deficit, acidification, salinization and sodification and toxic accumulation of agricultural chemicals and urban/industrial pollutants.

In many instances, these have led to a serious decline in soil quality and productivity and it is only in recent decades that the finite nature of soil as a resource has become widely recognised. Soil degradation is not a new phenomenon. Archeological evidence suggests that it has been on­-going since the beginning of settled agriculture several thousand years ago.At this time, intensive agricultural practices, employed in the eastern states, were transferred to the drier Midwest where the soils are lighter textured and more susceptible to erosion. A number of years of drought, combined with crop failure and destruction of the protective organic-rich topsoil, resulted in severe wind erosion.

According to the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation project, about 15 per cent of the global land area between 72°N and 57°S is degraded. Of this, an area slightly less than that of India (about 300 million hectares) is strongly degraded, largely as a result of deforestation (113 million hectares), inappropriate management of cropped land (83 million hectares) and overgrazing (75 million hectares).