what is soil degradation ? explain any four reasons of soil degradation.
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Answer:
Soil degradation examples include a decline in soil fertility, adverse changes in alkalinity, acidity or salinity, extreme flooding, use of toxic soil pollutants, erosion, and deterioration of the soil's structural condition. These elements contribute to a significant amount of soil quality depreciation annually.
Soil degradation examples include a decline in soil fertility, adverse changes in alkalinity, acidity or salinity, extreme flooding, use of toxic soil pollutants, erosion, and deterioration of the soil's structural condition. These elements contribute to a significant amount of soil quality depreciation annually.
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What is soil erosion and soil degradation? Although soil erosion is a natural process, human activities over the past decades have greatly accelerated it. In fact, according to the UNESCO, land degradation is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of humanity, driving species extinct and intensifying climate change. According to a senior UN official, all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years.
Soil Erosion Simple Definition
Soil erosion is a gradual process of movement and transport of the upper layer of soil (topsoil) by different agents – particularly water, wind, and mass movement – causing its deterioration in the long term.
In other words, soil erosion is the removal of the most fertile top layer of soil through water, wind and tillage.
What Is Soil Erosion? A Soil Erosion Scientific Definition
According to a Pereira and Muñoz-Rojas (2017) synthesis, soil erosion is one of the major causes, evidence of, and key variables used to assess and understand land degradation. Soil erosion is a consequence of unsustainable land use and other disturbances, such as fire, mining, or intensive agricultural uses. The loss of soil may have serious impacts on the quantity and quality of soil ecosystem services, with serious economic, social, and political implications.
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According to Al-Kaisi from Iowa State University, there are 5 main types of natural soil erosion:
1) Sheet erosion by water;
2) Wind erosion;
3) Rill erosion – happens with heavy rains and usually creates smalls rills over hillsides;
4) Gully erosion – when water runoff removes soil along drainage lines
5) Ephemeral erosion that occurs in natural depressions.
Despite these types of soil erosion, as we have briefly mentioned above, if it wasn’t for human activities, today’s soils would be less susceptible to erosion and more resilient. What are the human causes behind soil erosion then?
1. Deforestation for Agriculture Is One of the Top Causes of Soil Erosion
The increasingly high demand of a growing population for commodities such as coffee, soybean, palm oil or wheat is clearing land for agriculture. Unfortunately, clearing autochthonous trees and replacing them with new tree crops that don’t necessarily hold onto the soil increases the risks of soil erosion. With time, as topsoil (the most nutrient-rich part of the soil) is lost, putting agriculture under threat.
2. Soil Erosion is Also Caused by Overgrazing, Which Causes Floods too
Overgrazing is caused by intensive cattle raising. As plants don’t have the recovery period they need, they end up being crushed and compacted by cattle. In this process, topsoil sediments are transported elsewhere. As for the remaining soil, it can lose its infiltration capacity, which means more water getting lost from the ecosystem and a harder time for new plants to grow.
3. Agrochemicals Cause Soil Erosion and Degradation
The use of chemicals under the form of pesticides and fertilizers on (often) monocultural crops is a very usual way of helping farmers improve their yields. However, the excessive use of phosphoric chemicals ends up causing an imbalance of microorganisms in the soil moisture, stimulating the growth of harmful bacteria. As the soil gets degraded, the risk of erosion increases and the sediments sweep (via the actions of water and wind) into rivers and nearby regions, possibly contaminating nearby ecosystems.
4. Construction and Recreational Activities
Setting up buildings and roads also have their share of responsibility when it comes to soil erosion as they don’t allow for the normal circulation of water. Instead, it runs off to flood nearby lands, speeded up erosion in these areas. Moreover, motor-based activities such as motocross also have the potential to disturb ecosystems and change (even if at a smaller scale compared with other causes) and erode the soilt study based on the results of 40 soil associations reported that the effects of soil erosion on soil productivity were mostly the result of subsoil properties such as soil water availability, root growth or plow layer fertility – which impact yield results. In the end, with an unfavorable subsoil, erosion is easier and yields and productivity are more greatly affected.