Immense Soil Depletion Around The World

Editorials News | Apr-30-2019

 Immense Soil Depletion Around The World

The content of carbon in the soil is three times more as compared to that in the atmosphere in general. This carbon is mainly being released due to two major reasons i.e. deforestation and poor farming. This is largely the cause of climate change and is immensely compromising the attempts in order to serve the increasing population of the world.

The main problems are as follows: soil erosion, compacted by machinery built over, or harmed by over-watering. Damage cause to the soil affects the climate in two main ways: (i) it compromises the growth of plants taking in carbon from the atmosphere, and (ii) it releases the soil carbon earlier stored by worms taking the leaf matter beneath the ground. The warning is expected to come from the awkwardly-named IPBES – the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The IPBES is a panel that studies the benefits of nature to humans. IPBES has scheduled its meeting in the present week which aims to get all the world’s governments singing from the same sheet about the requirement to protect natural systems. As per information, the IPBES shall release a formal report on Monday, 6th May. According to statistics, nearly 3.2 billion people all around the world are suffering from degraded soils. If analyzed, 3.2 billion people mean almost half of the world population. In reality, soil is being degraded all over the world. The soil is losing organic carbon majorly which often undermines the agricultural productivity and contributes to climate change. It is immensely important to improve the quality of the soil largely. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was previously led by Watson. The government has focused on climate change way beyond than they have focused on loss of biodiversity or land degradation. All of these three are equally important to human wellbeing. Soil expert Prof Jane Rickson from Cranfield University stated that the thin layer of soil covering the Earth's surface is depictive of the difference between survival and extinction for most terrestrial life. Nearly 3% of the planet's surface is appropriate for arable production and 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to land degradation each year. We cannot afford to lose the soil we have because, soils form at a rate of 1cm in 300 years. There is lack of exact statistics concerning the level of global soil degradation. According to the existing information, the major hotspots are reported to be in South America, where forests are being felled; sub-Saharan Africa; India and China. The soil scientists in both the biggest Asian nations are immensely worried that their ability to grow their own food may have to suffer largely.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48043134


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