ENVR 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Soil Horizon, Subsoil, Pedogenesis
7 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Soils may be the most underappreciated environmental resource out there. Water and air are more important, but they get all the headlines. Very hard to grow food without soil. There is some evidence that there was a lot of soil erosion occurring at the very end of many of the ancient civilizations: greeks, romans, mayan, chinese, etc. Food scarcity may well have played a role in the destabilization of the societies. Only about 20% of land is suitable for farming and only a few percent can be farmed intensely. Other areas are too dry, too cold, too mountainous, or the soil is of poor quality. There are currently over 7 billion people on the planet and about 1 billion people do not have food security. By 2050 we will be 9-10 billion, and we will be more wealthy, which will probably mean we will eat more meat. Food production will need to almost double to meet these demands.
