IB HL GEOGRAPHY
Clare Cole
Explain the causes of soil degradation. Discuss the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of this process, together with management strategies.
Soil and Change Terminology
Linked to the image below are important terms relating to this unit focused on soil and change.
Video Critique: Soil 101
This video contains a large amount of useful information concerning the vast importance of soil in the world today. Created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the video talks about what soil consists of (45% minerals, 25% water, 25% air, and 5% organic matter), and how so many organisms reside in healthy soil. In one tablespoon of healthy soil, there are more organisms than there are humans on Earth. A quarter of the biodiversity on Earth resides in our soil, proving how vital it is to our survival. Rapid urbanization over the past century had led to extreme soil degredation; in Europe for example, 11 hectares of soils are covered by expanding cities every hour. Even though 95% of our food comes from the soil, our inability to maintain and protect it has caused severe waste and degredation. Ending the destruction of our soil would be beneficial to the human race, allowing more food production and fertile land.
Soil Degradation: Slides
In this activity, we were put into groups of four, and assigned one of the following topics. Then, once we had completed the slides, we split up and discussed the soil degradation issues.
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Video Critique: The Soil Story
This is another video that talks about the importance of soil, but in a different way. While the other one focuses on how the human race is destroying soil and all of the microorganisms living there, this one talks about how we can use soil as a solution to the enhanced greenhouse effect that we have created. The presenter is extremely passionate about the issue at hand, which makes the video easier to watch. To paraphrase, he basically talks about how planting trees, planned grazing, and crop circulation will all help to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere, by pulling it back into the Earth. It was interesting how closely this unit on soil, and the previous unit on atmosphere are linked, and how, there is a simple solution to both climate change and soil degradation.