"The top 20cm of soil is all that stands between us and extinction... desertification and land degradation is the greatest environmental challenge of our time and a threat to global wellbeing" - Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of UNCCD (UN's Convention to combat desertification)
Why is soil so important?
The top 10 cm of soil holds the most life on earth, ranging from the most beautiful flower to the most exotic animal. Life depends on the nutrients in the soils. Without it, there wouldn't be food, there wouldn't be regulation on the greenhouse gases and finally, water would be dirtier as soil filters water, cleanly and efficiently. There is only 20 cm of top soil averagely across the world, and it takes 200 years to naturally produce 10 cm of top soil, however half of the total top soil has been lost to land degradation in the past 150 years. While this at first may not sound bad, the rate we are degrading top soil is increasing substantially every year due to increasing population resulting in increased demand for meats and crops. The increased farming of coffee, soybean and wheat have increased soil erosion to levels that are not economically sustainable while animal grazing have decreased quality of soils making it more prone to erosion and soil structure decline. Land degradation is a world wide problem, however this website will divulge into this problem in Australia.
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Figure 3: An infographic also produced by the the United Nations University to increase public understanding of land and soil degradation on Earth during World Soil Day which is a global event with lectures held around the world, including Australia. This infographic shows the importance of soil and how to secure our soil and land.
Source: http://inweh.unu.edu/infographics/
This Youtube clip provides a brief and engaging introduction into the issue that the world is facing. It shows how the high demand and increasing population is resulting to humans using unsuitable land for farming. It outlines the economic and social problems that we will face in the long-term if land degradation is not resolved. As the video shows, land degradation is cause by many things and the costs are increasing if farming and use of soil is not reduced to sustainable rates.
All images and graphs in this website are able to be enlarged.
This website was designed and thoroughly researched by Cameron Ma.