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Recommended: Soil erosion
What is the issue? Why have you chosen this issue?
The issue that I will be outlining is land erosion. I have chosen this issue because it is a big problem in Australia and in the world as it effects many industries, especially agriculture. Soil degradation is the decline in soil quality caused by its improper use, usually for agricultural, pastural, industrial or urban purposes.
Soil degradation is a serious global environmental problem and may be exacerbated by climate change. It encompasses physical, chemical and biological deterioration.
Where is it occurring?
There are many types of erosion in Australia there is:
Sheet erosion is when the water removes even layers of soil.
Rill erosion is when the water makes channels up to 30 cm deep.
Mass movement is when the erosion is helped by gravity, including landslides and avalanches.
Wind erosion is when the wind lifts and removes topsoil.
Soil erosion is a major issue for Australian agriculture and catchment management. The rate of soil production in Australia is very low, and in many areas it is greatly exceeded by the rate of soil loss. Erosion is widespread in Australia, especially the in the
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In cases of a lack of vegetation soil is exposed to erosion. Wind erosion blows the top soil off especially in the sandier areas where there are finer particles. Animals or cultivation of the soil can also break down soil particles into sizes that are more susceptible to wind erosion. This can cause a build up of soils in other places. Water washing over the loose, exposed soil can also result in large volumes of soil being lost. Most Australian soils are very shallow and have most of the nutrients in the top few centimeters. Erosion that carries away these top few centimeters of soil is particularly damaging. The remaining soil is unproductive, often unable to be re–taken over by native vegetation and susceptible to further
3. 120 MY : Continued erosion of the land as it is slowly uplifted and
Erosion is when the elements such as wind, water, and ice remove pieces of land. (“What is Coastal Erosion?”) Coastal Erosion takes place when destructive waves wear parts of the coast away. Four ways in which this takes place are corrasion/abrasion, hydraulic action, attrition, and corrosion/solution. (“Internet Geography”) Corrasion/abrasion is when materials are hurled at the base of cliffs through waves. Hydraulic action is when waves hit the base of a cliff and air is compacted, when the wave leaves air is rushed out and often this causes the material to break. Attrition is when the waves cause rocks and pebbles to smash into each other and eventually break into pieces. Finally, Corrosion/solution is when certain types of cliff erode from the result of acids in the sea. (“Internet Geography”) Coastal Erosion is the natural process of taking land away permanently from one place to put it somewhere else. (“What is Coastal Erosion?”) Eroding coastlines are an abundant and important topic because it can change people’s surroundings in a negative way. I would like to address the questions surrounding Coastal Erosion.
Climate change has the potential to devastate millions in Australia. Rising temperatures will impact the landscape of Australia by decreasing Australia's forests. Australia is going to have to spend billions of dollars to make sure their safety from climate change. The people in Australia will need to be strong and flexible to make it through this tough time they're going through, and Australia will have to find a way to fix this problem before it's too late. Climate change is something that will affect the entire world and it's not an issue to take lightly. Australia’s solutions are not simple at all and in order for them to work everyone will have to work together. Climate change in Australia will impact the environment, the economy, and the lives of Australians, an example of a solution is to cut down on carbon emissions.
What is soil? “Soil is a complex mixture of eroded rock, mineral nutrients, decaying organic matter, water, air, and billions of living organisms, most of them microscopic decomposers.” (Miller and Spoolman, 211). As stated, soil is made when a mixture of items such as eroded rock and mineral nutrients come together. Soil is used in a plethora of ways. Soil is where many of the nutrients plants need to grow comes from, soil purifies water, and even absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be stored as carbon compounds (Miller and Spoolman, 211). Scientists study soil to develop a better understanding how this crucial factor in human’s survival functions and how to make sure humans don’t waste this precious resource (Miller and Spoolman, 211).
Land clearing is the process of removing bushland, forest, woodland or grassland, and most commonly occurs in Queensland and New South Wales. Over the last 200 years 70 percent of Australia’s native vegetation was cleared, most occurring in the past 50 years. Approximately 6 million hectares of various ecosystems were removed between 2001 and 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_clearing_in_Australia, 2010). Australia’s land has been utilized over the past century even though it is known as ‘one of the driest and least fertile continents of the world’ (Australian Conservation Foundation, 2000), although land clearing is still an issue due to increased soil salinity and greenhouse gases.
Take, for example, that livestock agriculture and the plant-based agriculture specifically used for feeding that livestock utilizes 30 percent of land on Earth. With crops in high demand to feed the many animals that are slaughtered or otherwise used by humans, it's been found that the soil has lost a great deal of its nutritional value and has eroded to the point that, in the United States, nearly 33 percent of topsoil is diminished.
The concept of drastically disturbed lands was split of between two sections: types of disturbances and defining the process of rebuilding. 4 major types of disturbance were outlined, the first on being town, cities, and roadways. These disturbances have high social value so it is very unlikely, that there will be any remediation taking place unless they become abandoned. The second type of disturbance road cuts, fills, and shoulders of roads. Though these disturbances are small on their own, together they make up the largest areas of drastically disturbed lands. The third type of disturbance are mine spoils. Out of all the disturbance, this one receives the most public attention. They take up less space, but they represent the largest amount of damage in their locations. The fourth type is the high percentage of eroded farmland and rangeland. Because this a slow degradation, they often receive very little attention. As for defining degradation, Bow also split this into two possible options: restoration, and reclamation. The author defined restoration as being the exact replication of a site after the disturbance.
It’s funny how things that you used to do as a kid can change the course of people’s lives. Myself, when my parents told me and my brothers and sisters that we were going to the cabin meant a week of solid fun. My family has a cabin up on Camano Island, which is about 20 minutes north of Everett, right off of the I-5 interstate. My family would go up there during the summer with my cousins and grandma, and go swimming when the tide was in, build sandcastles when the tide was out, only to have them washed away when the tide came back in, build forts with the new driftwood that came in each year, explore the wrecked ship down the beach in one direction from our cabin, and scour the dunes that were north of our cabin. The dunes were the best part going to the cabin. We would always try to get there by walking along the wood that had been washed up and once we got there, we would race up the hills and jump down into the sand pits below. Another things that we all used to love doing, were to see who had carved messages into the sides of the dunes. There were all sorts of messages, love message from husband to wife, boyfriend to girlfriend. ‘I was here’ messages, and then there were simply names. That is what we always used to do. Every year, my two cousins, dad, three siblings and I would climb up into the dunes and carve our names into the wall using sticks. This was done over and over again for about 8-10 years. Over the last couple of years we did this we noticed that we could see a house at the top of the dunes. This was something that we never noticed before and when we asked my dad, he said that he never noticed it either. We thought nothing about it at the time, carved our names in the wall and went back to the cabin. Later on we heard from other people who lived up there that there was a big concern by the people who live in that house that all of the messages that people had carved along with the natural erosion of the hills has caused the hill side to be dangerously close to being pushed back far enough to where the house might fall down.
My inference is that this picture was created by wind erosion. My evidence that supports my claim “It looks like wind erosion” is that this rock is out in the desert where there is a lot of sand that can create a sand storm. The stone is is chipped and sanded down, you can tell by the ridges on the rock, the shape of the rock, and the small pieces of the rock that have been broken of. Another part of why I think this rock has been eroded with wind is that there is a higher level of sand underneath this rock meaning that it was chipped off of the rock. These are some reasons why I think that this rock has been affected by wind erosion. Before this, I think that this stone could have been a huge boulder. I think this because you can see the rock
Agriculture also leads to soil erosion, both through rainfall and wind. This soil can damage the aquatic ecosystems it ends up in, an...
Desertification involves the loss of biological or economic productivity and complexity in croplands, pastures, and woodlands. It is due mainly to variability and unsustainable human activities. The most commonly cited forms of unsustainable land use are over cultivation, overgrazing, and poor irrigation practices. 70% of the world's drylands are degraded. While drought is often associated with land degradation, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs when rainfall is significantly below normal record levels for long periods of time.
It can cause natural disasters such as landslides. Landslides can be deadly, and they can alter the landscape of the Earth. In the 20th century there were at least seven catastrophic landslides caused by heavy rain, leading to erosion. For example, in Brazil in 1967, 1,700 people were reported dead due to landslides and flooding. Erosion can also cause other problems such as soil degradation. Soil degradation is the decline of soil condition. An example of a natural cause of soil erosion and degradation is the flow of rivers. Soil erosion from some agricultural areas may be as large as 300 tons per hectare per year (Earth Science for Students). This leads to soil degradation which can then lead to large economic losses. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S can spend as much as 10 billion dollars a year due to erosion. Soil degradation is also a problem in developing nations. The loss of soil can lead to desertification, the spread of desert conditions. A third problem that can be caused by erosion is water pollution leading to the death of aquatic life. Eroded soil can contain pesticides and fertilizer that can be deposited into rivers, dams, wetlands and other waterways, causing pollution. Also, the soil that erodes will then change into sediment. Sediment is matter that settles at the bottom of liquid. The chemicals that erode into the water can cause excessive algae to grow, while the sediment makes it difficult for aquatic plants to perform photosynthesis. Both chemicals and sediment cause the death of aquatic life, including fish, invertebrates and
home farm. Reducing soil erosion is one of the most important practices on my home farm.
Saline soil is also vulnerable to erosion due to the death of vegetation that held the soil together. Soil that is eroded can ‘pollute’ water too.