5.3 Soil Degradation and Conservation

Key Ideas

Fertile soils require significant time to develop through the process of succession.
Human activities may reduce soil fertility and increase soil erosion.
Soil conservation strategies exist and may be used to preserve soil fertility and reduce soil erosion.

Succession and Healthy Soils

Soil ecosystems change through succession. Fertile soil contains a community of organisms that work to maintain functioning nutrient cycles and that are resistant to soil erosion.

Kahoot

Who's there?

Using your favourite image editing software, draw a "healthy" soil food web. Label organisms with the ways in which they

"Work to maintain functioning nutrient cycles"
Increase "resistance to soil erosion"

Reduced Soil Fertility

Human activities that can reduce soil fertility include deforestation, intensive grazing, urbanization and certain agricultural practices (such as irrigation and monoculture).
Commercial, industrialized food production systems generally tend to reduce soil fertility more than small-scale subsistence farming methods.
Reduced soil fertility may result in soil erosion, toxification, salination and desertification.

Topic-5.3-Soil-degredation-and-conservation

Causes and Consequences

Use Explain Everything to produce a diagram to visually represent the causes and consequences of soil degradation. Add audio description.

Return to Placeovia

The Placeovian agriculture minister requires a morning briefing on three sources of information. Pick one from the list below and write the briefing. It should be:

no more than half a page long
understandable by a non-expert
expressing a clear concluding opinion for the minster to adopt

Sources:

WWF Website Easy
WWF Report Medium
Peer-Reviewed Journal Article Hard

Conserving Soils

Soil conservation measures include soil conditioners (such as organic materials and lime), wind reduction techniques (wind breaks, shelter belts), cultivation techniques (terracing, contour ploughing, strip cultivation) and avoiding the use of marginal lands.