Link: http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Effect-Of-Erosion-On-Our-Earth
Summary: This article is about how erosion is made worse by human use. For example, humans contribute to deforestation, allow cattle to overgraze, tillage and unmanaged construction or building of roads. With all of these factors soil is being eroded at a much faster rate then it can be reformed, causing the land to be unprotected and vulnerable. With the more soil and top soil gone, erosion has become a huge environmental issue around the world. For example, erosion is effecting the quantity of crops grown. Many are worried about the long terms effects of soil erosion mainly because if there isn't enough soil then there isn't enough food for everyone. This article is saying that people need to be more concerned and start preventing soil erosion.
Reflection: I think that soil erosion is a big deal and that people don't know about it enough to help prevent it. To help stop this problem, people have to be more carful in how they plow fields and where they let there animals graze. Also, in the lab that we did early this week, it tells about many things that farmers can do on there farms to prevent soil erosion. Cover crops seem to help the most. I hope that we can stop this problem before it gets even worse, that way in the future we won't run low on food.
Quote: Globally, the most serious consequence of erosion is the threat to long term sustainability of agricultural productivity.
Questions:
1.) Do you think that over the next 50 years people will have found a way to almost completely stop soil erosion? How?
2.) Do you think it is possible for laws to be put in place to regulate soil erosion? If so what types of laws?
3.) What ways can people everywhere help stop soil erosion?
Erosion is definitely a huge problem on our earth. If you think about it, eventually, if erosion continues at the rate it is going, there will eventually be no more land left! However, I never knew that soil was essential to agriculture. I guess if I really thought about it I could figure it out but I have always associated soil with oceans and rivers for some reason. It's interesting how humans contribute to erosion as well. I always believed that it was always performed naturally, by rain washing the soil away or some other liquid substance.
ReplyDelete1) Yes, I think they will. 50 years is a very long time and our country, for the most part, is pretty good at finding solutions to problems.
2) Yes, I'm sure that if the EPA really tried they could get the government to pass a few laws regulating soil erosion. Perhaps they could make one saying that if you erode any soil, you have to pay a fine. Or maybe, they could make humans aware of all the ways that they could possibly be eroding soil and the negative effects that this has.
3) First, they can stop building so many roads and doing so much construction on the ground. They can time the amount of time their cattle is allowed to graze, making sure that the cattle does not overgraze in the fields, and they can stop destroying forests!!
Like Kelly said, I think if we keep eroding the earth up to a point where water just covers everything; however, we're pretty far from that at the moment. Also, I didn't know just how much humans contrubuted to soil erosion, and how serious it of a problem it was, and now I'm trying to think of ways that people may erode soil and not be aware of it...
ReplyDelete1. Not in 50 years, completely, but sometime in the future I think people may have invented an artificial "soil" that people could put down to fill up eroded areas.
2. Possibly, but you can't really point a finger at someone and say, "You're eroding!!" It's not a concrete "crime" you can pin on someone.