Soil and Humans

Soil and Humans

by Nikki Boyett

​How humans impact our soil

Multiple Choice

Do you think human life has an impact on soil?

• Yes

• No

​How does land use affect soil?

​The way people use land can affect the levels of nutrients and pollution in soil. Any activity that exposes soil to WIND and RAIN can lead to soil loss.

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​Farming, construction and development, and mining are among the main activities that impact soil resources.

​Farming impacts on soil

​Farming is VERY important as it provides necessary resources for humans. It provides food, resources to make clothing, and more.

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​Farmers typically add fertilizers to their soil to help supplement nutrients for their crops to grow more efficiently.

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​These unnatural nutrients will become pollution in rivers, lakes, and oceans once rainwater transports them to another location.

​Farming impacts on soil

​Overgrazing occurs when farm animals eat large amounts of the natural land cover. Due to the lack of vegetation, it makes the soil vulnerable to erosion. It makes it easier to be eroded because it does not have the vegetation roots holding the sediment together. Plants also provide cover to the soil to help protect against erosion.

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Overgrazing causes desertification. Desertification is the expansion of desert conditions in areas where the natural plant cover has been destroyed.

Multiple Choice

Does farming have an impact on our soil? Why or why not? Choose the best answer. 

• It does have an impact, only positive. 

• It is positive in the sense it provides needed resources. However, it negatively impacts our soil due to pollution and causes desertification.

• It negatively impacts our soil due to putting fertilizer in the soil. 

​Construction and Development

​To make things such as roads, houses, malls, and more, construction workers dig up the vegetation in the area. This exposes the soil making it more vulnerable to erosion. When the soil is transported through erosion to another location, it most likely is deposited in rivers, creeks, lakes, or nearby low-lying areas. This can cause harm to the organisms that live there. The buildup of soil on riverbeds raises the level of the rivers and may cause flooding. The soil can fill up those natural water areas.

Mining

As we learned when reading about minerals, there are a variety of ways to look for minerals. Mining- strip mines and open-pit mining- requires a large area that can be dug up. The need to dig in that area, causes the loss of vegetation which makes the soil become more vulnerable to erosion.

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​Due to the area used for mining, it can also increase the rate of chemical weathering on rocks.

How can we protect our soil?

Soil takes hundred to thousands of years to naturally produce so it is VERY important to protect our soil.

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​We can use crop rotation, conservation tillage, terraces, contour plowing, and windbreaks to help preserve our soil.

Crop Rotation and Conservation Tillage

Crop rotation is the practice of planting different crops on the same field in different years or growing seasons. Some crops take away natural nutrients in the soil. Some crops replace those nutrients. Farmers planting them on a rotation can help preserve that soil.

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​Conservation Tillage includes several methods of reducing the number of times fields are tilled, or plowed, in a year. By not disturbing the soil often, farmers can reduce erosion.

Terraces and Contour Plowing

Terraces are flat, steplike areas built on a hillside to hold rainwater and prevent it from running downhill. Crops are planted on the flat tops to help protect the soil.

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​Contour plowing is the practice of plowing along the curves, or contours, of a slope. Contour plowing helps channel rainwater so that it does not run straight downhill, carrying away soil with it. Strip-cropping, planting of grasses, shrubs, or other plants between rows of grain crops, will help contour plowing.

Windbreaks

Windbreaks are rows of trees planted between fields to "break" or reduce, the force of winds that carry off soil. This can be used in farming as well as other developments. Developers can plant vegetation near new built properties to help reduce erosion.

​Contour Plowing

Terrace Growing

Windbreak

Multiple Select

What are ways farmers can reduce soil erosion? Click all that apply

• Windbreaks

• Contour Plowing

• Crop Rotation

• Nothing, erosion of soil is going to happen.

Multiple Select

Humans have an impact on soil erosion. There are a variety of things we can do to help reduce the effect of soil erosion. There are things that humans do that increase the effect on erosion. Click all that apply that INCREASE erostion. 

• Building parking lots

• Creating a natural habit protection

• Removing trees in a forest

• Not moving animals in a field, causing them to overgraze