Earth in the Balance
Land degradation is one of the biggest issues we face living on earth. Although most of us do not see this problem in our everyday life because the problem is mostly in rural areas and most of the population lives in cities. Land degradation can cause many issues not only for our environment but also for the economy. You are not able to grow crops because the land is unfertile and therefore many countries that have this problem get caught up with problems with their agriculture. There are many different types of land degradation. First there is erosion which is when the nutrient-rich topsoil of the earth is removed by natural elements like water or wind. Because of the climate effecting erosion it mostly happens in places where there is a lot of rainfall year round. The Philippines have had a lot of trouble with erosion of the land because of their
weather patterns. There is also chemical deterioration which is the decline of usable soil as a result of leaching, salinization, acidification, or pollution. This form is not as common as erosion but still happens to certain pieces of land. When chemical deterioration occurs all of the nutrients in the soil are taken out and the land is no longer useable for agriculture. There is also a form of degradation called physical deterioration and this happens as a result of human machinery, animals building home, or subsidence, this type of degradation is caused by using physical force of impact from wildlife that makes the soil unusable.Last but not least there is desertification which is a more rare form but happens when people don’t take care of the land and it becomes desert like.
Land Degradation
Fun Facts!
About 25 per cent of the Earth’s land, or 3.6 billion hectares, is desertified!
By the 2050s, 50 per cent of agricultural land in Latin America will be subject to desertification!
Waste has become a huge problem for many countries around the world, there is so much waste building up that we don’t know what to do with it all. In Ontario alone there are 5601 dump sites that we send our garbage to. Most people ignore this problem because they think it doesn’t affect them but it actually does affect us in many ways. It pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink and releases dangerous toxins into the air. Waste is dealt with in many different ways. We are told to reduce, reuse, recycle and even though it does make our earth a greener place it does not happen enough to create a huge shift in the environment.
make our earth a greener place it does not happen enough to create a huge shift in the environment. In countries that belong to the far periphery and near core do not have as much of a waste problem simply because the more money you have the more you buy which equals out to more waste so countries with a lower per capita income has less waste to dispose of.
Waste Management