Friday, 6 October 2017

1. Why Are Soils Important?

“There can be no life without soil and no soil without life”
Charles E. Kellogg


Soil is the basis of all terrestrial life. It provides a range of ‘ecosystem services’ (outlined in the diagram below) without which we simply could not exist. In particular, soil supplies around 95% of the food we eat and stores over 3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere. Yet, despite its obvious importance, soil is a ‘nearly forgotten resource’. It’s seen as boring, brown and dirty rather than essential to our survival.

Fig. 2 Ecosystem services provided by the soil (Source: Baveye et al., 2016)

Food insecurity and climate change are two of the greatest threats faced by humanity today.  Poor soil management will increase these threats; good soil management could significantly reduce them.

 This blog investigates whether soil will be the cause of our downfall or the key to our salvation.

2 comments:

  1. Unknown7 November 2017 at 06:37

    Interesting post Becca! The extent of soil degradation is quite scary. I was watching an interview made by a vlogger I subscribe to and they discussed soil, especially agriculture's impact on soil. They were discussing its importance and really wanted people to know more about it since it's so significant to our livelihoods - I'm just wondering how you think soil degradation can become more accessible to the public sphere so we are able to have these important discussions? As you said previously, soil isn't particularly charismatic and this is it's downfall in my opinion.

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  2. Rebecca Mason8 November 2017 at 04:33

    Hi Ruth! Thanks for reading.

    You’re right: soil is much less charismatic than polar bears! This may partly explain why there is so little awareness of its significance and its degradation. However, you ask how I think we could make soil degradation more accessible to the public sphere. I think this may actually be easier than you might expect.

    How many people have ever seen a polar bear? We require adverts, posters, and TV documentaries to know what these animals even look like. Whereas, soil is everywhere… it is a visible, tangible entity that everyone has seen or touched at some point in their life. Everybody knows what soil is (even if they don’t know about its importance). Therefore, when someone talks about soil, it is easy to relate to. We need to build on this and find communicators that can bridge the gap between complex academic literature aimed at soil scientists and accessible, captivating media aimed at the general public.

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