Soil Degradation and Conservation

Soil degradation is one of the serious yet unnoticed issues that pose a huge threat to the hole of the ecosystem. Soil is now considered a nonrenewable resource rather than a renewable source because we are losing it faster than recovering it. In addition to supporting plant growth, the soil has millions of functions like providing habitats to millions of organisms, filtering the water and storing it underground, and so on, which will be affected due to the degradation process severely. 

Soil Degradation

Soil degradation can be defined as the loss of soil health and its beneficiaries to the ecosystem that would cause a diminished impact on lives. Even though it doesn’t completely lose the nutrition in it, the content left in it would have little to no impact on the functioning of the ecosystem when used. 

Soil erosion is a phenomenon often confused with soil degradation. This is one of the most visible impacts of soil degradation. Even though it occurs naturally at certain places, poor management makes the phenomenon worse. It is caused by some erosive factors like water, air, etc., that would sweep the soil from one place to another, resulting in soil deterioration. 

In desert lands, desertification is associated with the outcomes of soil degradation. It is the irreversible process of change of land into an unusable state. 

Rainfall and Flooding

Some natural phenomena like rain could be seen as the natural factors that contribute to the worsening of the state of the soil. In recent years, the occurrence of massive rainfall, flooding, and droughts has increased multifold worldwide, and soil degradation plays a vital role in this. 

Rain is uneven, unlike in the past years, and it has resulted in inevitable results for the ecosystem. At certain places, rainfall increases to never-before-seen extents, and most of the water flows as run-off on the surface. This has resulted in reduced water-retaining soil capacity and a huge amount of soil erosion. On the other hand, the chances of precipitation in other places are highly reduced, and hence these areas would be desertified. So, in short, one can easily predict the range of soil degradation by keenly noticing the rainfall and flooding rates in an environment. 

Conservation Measures

Conservation measures involve a set of farming practices and techniques that help elevate the state of the degradation. These measures are often targeted with long-term exposure rather than for a short period. These also help the farmers boost their performances easily over time. 

Soil conservation measures rely majorly on three key steps, and they are: 

• Getting sufficient knowledge on the suitable use of land resources in an area

• Monitoring the fields and spotting zones that are critical 

• Regulating and estimating the required conservation measures for the future according to the changing scenarios

Some of the most practised measures are contour farming, wise choice of crops according to the nutrients in the soil, crop rotation to prevent overexploitation of soil nutrients, covering crops according to the agricultural land, and intercropping to enable better soil coverage, and strip cropping practises.                                              

Logging and Mining

Logging is a phenomenon similar to deforestation, where the trees that help hold the soil are removed. The roots of the trees account for holding the soil tight, while the leaves and the branches are accountable for the formation of a canopy that prevents the exposure of heavy elements to raw soil. When trees are cut down, there will be no leaf litter production, which contributes to the protection of the top layer of soil. Eventually, we are left with nothing but the occurrence of soil erosion. 

Mining is a process where every resource in the way of reaching the required elements is exploited to get a better reach of the target elements. Removing the resources like forestry, raw soil, etc., directly contributes to rapid soil erosion and the loss of nutrients in the soil as it is quickly exposed to the heavy elements present on the surface. Hence, logging and mining are some activities to be restrained strictly to prevent further worsening of the current scenario. 

Degradation of Soil

Degradation of soil is defined as the decline in the physical, chemical, and biological qualities of soil by the adverse changes produced either naturally or anthropologically, and contribute to loss of organic matter in the soil, damaged structural conditions, soil erosion, changes in the factors like salinity, alkalinity, etc., and the contamination of soil by the pollutants and toxic elements present on the surface. 

Degradation of soil is one of the main focuses of some well-known environmentalists worldwide as it has already started affecting the ecosystem in unpredictable ways. Some of the most preferred methods in preventing the condition are considered after a series and are implemented while farming.    

Conclusion

The entire ecosystem of plants relies mainly on soil quality, and they contribute to the first stage of a food chain. A disturbance in the former could have serious results and issues for subsequent generations, and humans must promptly take measures to help protect mother nature before things get out of our hands. Hence, one must consider twice before involving oneself in any sort of activities that degrades the quality of soil and should rather concentrate on the alternatives that one can afford. To promote this behaviour, the state governments must incentivise innovative farmers.