Land use change, unsustainable soil management practices, invasive species, pollution, soil sealing, and urbanization are the main causes of soil biodiversity loss. Introducing invasive plant species should be avoided as invasive species compete with other species/native species for water, sunlight, nutrients. And also, invasive species have the ability to dominate the ecosystem. Then soil fertility gets reduced, and soil conditions become relatively poor.

Here are the main key drivers of loss of soil biodiversity:

Land use change

Due to land use change, land degradation, and deterioration of soil quality are happened. Soil quality deterioration is happened through loss of top soil moisture, water storage, infiltration capacity, vegetative cover, soil organic matter, resilience, fertility.

Invasive species

Roots of plants affect positively soil structure, mobilization of nutrients, and plants modify soil environment. Invasive plant species alter nutrients cycles in a different way.

Unsustainable soil management practices

Unsustainable soil management practices such as tillage cause soil erosion, while proper soil management practices like mulching, planting cover crops, managing soil organic matter, enhance soil quality.

Pollution

Soil pollution affects negatively the organic matter content, and filtering capacity of the soil. Imbalance of soil nutrients, and groundwater contamination are also caused due to pollution.

Soil sealing and urbanization

Soil sealing causes loss of soil biodiversity. Flooding, and landslides happen due to soil sealing. Soil conditions, soil structure, and vegetation cover are destroyed through landslides, and flooding. Human settlements increas with a rise in population increase and urbanization. Slope stability gets disturbed, natural vegetation gets reduced, and runoff increases with the human settlements, thereby increasing the risk of landslides. Therefore, soil biodiversity loss is happening at an alarming rate.

While natural factors such as wind and rain will always cause some erosion, this is exacerbated by unsuitable agricultural practices, including overgrazing, deforestation and climate change.

What is soil erosion?

Soil erosion is a natural process that displaces the soil’s upper layer that is rich in nutrients needed for the growth of plants.

Which factors accelerate soil erosion?

Soil erosion, the most common type of land degradation, is accelerated by anthropogenic factors, such as removing the natural vegetation that protects the lands’ surface.

Soil erosion is particularly unfavorable for countries in tropical, subtropical and arid climate zones.

It is most prevalent in Africa as soil erosion affects nearly 65% of cropland, followed by Latin America (51%) and Asia (38%).

Importance of Healthy Soils

Healthy soils are necessary for healthy ecosystem as they provide food, clean water and raw materials.

However, factors such as acidification, unscientific cropping patterns and loss of biodiversity are some of the threats that soils are presently facing.

Effects of Soil Erosion

• Removing the highly fertile topsoil, soil erosion endangers soil health.

• It not only decreases agri-productivity, and degrades ecosystem functions, but also amplifies hydrogeological risk like landslides or floods.

• Soil erosion can also cause significant losses in biodiversity, damage to urban and rural infrastructure and, in extreme cases, lead to displacement of human populations.

Need of the Hour

From educating the youth on this global issue to creating awareness, preventing soil erosion is indispensable to ensure a food secure future.