Tillage to Erosion EarthCache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Whilst mountain biking in the area one day I decided to take a new route and was amazed at the beauty of the scenery until I mounted a steep hill and was sorry to see this soil erosion on a green hillside like a scar on the landscape.
LOGGING QUESTION: What crops caused this erosion? and What is on the small road side sign at the viewpoint?
Whilst continuing my ride home I was more aware and spotted quite a few other disastrous soil erosion examples largely caused by crops and tillage of the soil in an area with relatively sandy soil, but also from habitations and settlements. Some of these must have been like mudslides once upon time.
We are told that around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished, destroying cropland the size of a small country each year.
Yet the need for food and other agricultural products continues to soar.
THE EROSION PROCESS:
Basically this consists of 3 stages.
1. DETACHMENT :
Here particles from the soil are dislodged by the impact energy of rain and/or wind.
2. TRANSPORT:
These dislodged soil particles are moved in the moving wind or water.
3. DEPOSITION:
When the wind and water eases off, it deposits the sediment elsewhere. Clay or silt size particles can be carried a great distance and spread out, but larger particles are obviously harder to move.
Some say soil erosion is second only to population growth as the biggest environmental problem the world faces, yet the problem, which is growing ever more critical, is being ignored, because nobody ever seems to worry about ground.
Erosion is a slow and stealthy process but preventing soil erosion can be really quite simple: The soil can be protected with cover crops when the land is not being used to grow crops. (Although no farmers seem to let any land lie fallow these days!)
Other ways to reduce erosion include reducing the need for people to clear forests for agriculture, and overgraze their cattle.
The vast majority of human food comes from cropland (almost 98%), which is shrinking by more than 10 million hectares a year due to soil erosion while more people than ever are malnourished.
One rainstorm can wash away 1 mm (.04 inches) of earth. Over a hectare (2.5 acres), it would take 13 tons of topsoil -- or 20 years if left to natural processes -- to replace that loss. This occurs year after year by wind and rain around the world. So now you can see how careful we need to be to protect our earth resources.
Some irresponsible agricultural practices are some of the greatest contributors to the global erosion rates. More so due to mono-cropping, farming on steep slopes, pesticide and chemical fertilizer usage (which kill organisms that bind soil together), row-cropping, and the use of surface irrigation. Tillage also increases wind erosion rates, by dehydrating the soil and breaking it up into smaller particles that can be picked up by the wind. Most of the trees are removed when farmers want to prepare fields, allowing winds to have long, open and to travel faster.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
F30 24.306 R30 36.978 Orfg cynpr gb ivrj vg sebz.
F30 25.221 R30 37.992 naq F30 23.852 R30 36.841 Orfg npprff ebnqf gb trg gb ivrj cbvag.
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