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Soil Degradation & Management

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Tasks

• What is soil? (260)• The importance of time in soil

formation?• What are leaching & salinisation?• What is alluvium?• What are: pastoral & arable farming?

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Soil degradation

• What is soil degradation?• Causes of soil degradation including

examples – deforestation (where, why, effect)– overgrazing (where, why, effect)– Monocultures (what & why, examples,

problems)– Irrigation & salinisation.

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Consequences of degradation• Loss of fertility ↑ pressure on the land

over-use of land depletion of nutrients ↑ need for fertilisers:– ↑ costs for farming ↑ food prices.– environmental impact leaching into water

supplies health issues & unintended impacts (eutrophication).

• Loss of farmland ↑ land prices in fertile areas & depletion of food supply ↑ food prices ↑ % of income spent on food (especially poor) trapped in poverty & reliance on aid.

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• Degradation of soil ↓ in farming in that area less rural jobs rural-urban migration & associated problems.

• Loss of vegetation rapid soil erosion & unstable slopes landslides & problems of deposition of material elsewhere

• Loss of productivity of land in LEDCs often leads to ↓ in dietary variety malnutrition & possibly starvation.

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Tasks• Short notes about soil management:

– Afforestation.– Crop rotation.– Draw a diagram & label it to explain how

terraces protect the soil.– Organic material.– Strip farming.– Stone lines.

• Case study: china – issues p.280 & solution p.283.