Human Activities affect Soil

1
Human Activities affect Soil

• Soil is a resource that you cant live without.
  Whether its supplying you with food, oxygen, or
  clean water. It sustains life!

2
Human Activities affect Soil

• Activities that affect soil resources are
• Farming
• Construction and development
• Mining

3
Human Activities affect Soil

• Farming is how humans have received their food
  for over 10,000 years.
• Farmers often add nutrients to their soils in the
  form or organic or artificial fertilizers to make
  crops grow better.

4
Human Activities affect Soil

• Over time farming practices can lead to the loss
  of soil.
• Such as when farmers clear land
• American farmers lose about 5 metric tons of soil
  for every ton of grain they produce.

5
Human Activities affect Soil

• Overgrazing can also occur, which is when farm
  animals eat large amounts of land cover.
• Just like when farmers clear trees, this prevents
  the soil to wash or blow away.
• This can cause desertification

6
Human Activities affect Soil

• To make various buildings and sites people need
  to dig up soil.
• A lot of this can cause the soil to wash or be
  blown away which can cause rivers and lakes to
  become muddy.

7
Human Activities affect Soil

• The affects can lead to flooding or can fill up
  lakes and reservoirs.

8
Human Activities affect Soil

• Certain methods of mining can also cause soil
  loss.

9
Human Activities affect Soil

• Strip mining and open pit mining involves the
  removal of plants.
• This can cause more exposure to air and water,
  which can speed up the process of chemical
  weathering

10
Human Activities affect Soil

• The speed up of chemical weathering can cause a
  type of pollution called acid drainage.
• This acid can seep into the soil and be harmful
  to plants trying to grow.

11
Human Activities affect Soil

• Soil is so important to not only humans but the
  world. So its important that we conserve our
  soil.

12
Human Activities affect Soil

• There are 5 methods for soil conservation
• Crop Rotation
• Conservation Tillage
• Terraces
• Contour Plowing
• Windbreaks

13
Human Activities affect Soil

• Crop Rotation is the practice of planting
  different crops on the same field in different
  years or growing seasons.

14
Human Activities affect Soil

• As you move your crops the harvest will remove
  different nutrients from the soil, thus not
  depleting the soil.

15
Human Activities affect Soil

• Conservation Tillage includes the way farmers
  limit the number of times fields are tilled or
  plowed in a year.
• The less the soil is disturbed the less likely it
  will be blown or washed away.

16
Human Activities affect Soil

• Terracing are fields that are set up as flat step
  like areas built on a hillside to hold rainwater
  and prevent it from running downhill.
• Crops are planted on the flat tops of the
  terraces.

17
Human Activities affect Soil

• Contour plowing is plowing on the curves of
  slopes. It helps so that rainwater does not run
  straight downhill.

18
Human Activities affect Soil

• Windbreaks are rows of trees planted between
  fields to break or reduce the number of force
  winds that can carry off soil.