Here's one of many recent articles about global soil loss: seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.html. This article, like most similar articles, refers to erosion as THE cause of soil losses.
What I'd like to know is, how much of a problem is subsidence due to organic matter decomposition? Shouldn't it be a big part of the problem under intensive agricultural methods that increase soil aeration, nutrients, and moisture, while reducing organic inputs by not fallowing the fields and by removing much crop residue? Are there any ECOLOGgers out there who have a ballpark figure on what percent of soil loss is caused by decomposition, rather than erosion? Thanks, Joe Gathman Biology Department University of Wisconsin River Falls http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.html Published on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer The Lowdown on Topsoil: Its Disappearing by Tom Paulson The planet is getting skinned. While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet.0122 09 Call it the thin brown line. Dirt. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth. Were losing more and more of it every day, said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture.... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
