Soil, human society and the environment

Abstract

Soils, forming the top layer of the Earth's crust, are a mixture of mineral particles, organic matter, water, air and living organisms. Processes between these components perform vital functions within ecosystems. The soil forms an interface between the geosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere, and is a largely non-renewable resource. Ugolini & Warkentin show the fruitful relationships which geology and soil science have established since the birth of soil science, and how these two disciplines together could contribute to solve future problems.The dynamic soil system delivers functions and services vital for human societies and the environment. Soil is the basis for food and biomass production, and plays a central role as a habitat for biota and as a gene pool. Moreover, it stores, filters, buffers and transforms a large variety of substances, including water, inorganic and organic compounds, and is a major sink and source for greenhouse gases. Soil provides raw materials for human use. It also serves as the basis for human activities (landscape and heritage) and for our technical and socio-economic infrastructure, delivering materials for their implementation and maintenance.

Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement in Kenya

“…'Soil nutrient mining' in croplands is an important driver of cropland degradation in Kenya. According to Blum (2006) soil is a limited resource and could be considered a non-renewable resource . Areas with poor soil fertility and with poor management practices tend to suffer from soil nutrient depletion.…”

New method of soil classification in defining the dynamic condition of agricultural surface soils

“…Sometime this would be inaccurate-classification, if careful attention is not been given during the physical observation in the field and at time of mathematical calculations under CSTE. It must be aware that agricultural surface soils are components of terrestrial soil environment (Muellar et al, 2010) that covered most lands of the earth with different physical nature and dynamic functions (Blum, 2006); therefore, the suitability of agricultural surface soils classification is good to take consideration of many distinct physical soil characteristics under specific agricultural activities as used in this study. In the present classification, the new soil group names are more of agricultural land use surface limitations such as flood plains, irrigated land, dry soils, valley land, millet land, rice land, sandy soil, clayed soils, decomposed organic material soils, sticky soils, moist soils, carbonated soils, coloured soils, deposited soils, transported soils and residual soils.…”

Spatial Distribution and Bioavailability of Some Essential Trace Elements in Southern Ondo State Nigeria

“…Soil functions as a filtering, buffering, storage, and transformation system; thus it protects against the effects of element pollution (Blum et al, 2006). Soil is effective in these functions only as long as the physical, chemical and its biological activities are preserved.…”