.jpg "In this photo taken April 16, 2008, and provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, geologist Jim Kilburn, now retired from the U.S. Geological Survey, collects soil from Kansas. The federal government sent students and scientists to more than 4,800 places across the nation to collect soil that was analyzed for its composition. The results are now highly sought after by researchers in a wide variety of fields. (Credit: AP Photo/U.S. Geological Survey) Click to enlarge.")
A small army of researchers and university students lugging pick axes and shovels scattered across the country for three years to scoop samples into plastic bags from nearly 5,000 places. They marked the GPS coordinates, took photos and labeled each bag before mailing them back to the government's laboratory in Denver.
Though always underfoot and often overlooked, dirt actually has a lot to tell. Scientists say information gleaned from it could help farmers grow better vegetables and build a better understanding of climate change. A researcher of forensic science said mud caked on a murder suspect's boots could reveal if he had traipsed through a crime scene or had been at home innocently gardening.
David Smith, who launched the U.S. Geological Survey project in 2001, said data about the dirt will feed research for a century, and he's sharing it with anyone who wants it. "The more eyes and brains that look at it, the better," Smith said.
National Soil Collection May Unlock Mysteries, Research Possibilities 'Almost Limitless'
Even before the drought, the southern San Joaquin Valley was in big trouble.
Decades of irrigation have leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil that have nowhere to go, threatening crops and wildlife. Aquifers are being drained at an alarming pace. More than 95 percent of the area's native habitat has been destroyed by cultivation or urban expansion, leaving more endangered bird, mammal and other species in the southern San Joaquin than anywhere in the continental U.S.
Federal studies long ago concluded that the only sensible solution is to retire hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Some farming interests have reached the same conclusion, even as they publicly blamed an endangered minnow to the north, known as the delta smelt, for the water restrictions that have forced them to fallow their fields.
The 600,000-acre Westlands Water District, representing farmers on the west side of the valley, has already removed tens of thousands of acres from irrigation and proposed converting damaged cropland to solar farms.
Many experts said if farmers don't retire the land, nature eventually will do it for them.
California Drought: Central Valley Farmland on Its Last Legs
Global warming of only 2 degrees Celsius will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions, researchers have determined, with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards. In the study, the researchers created a new data set by combining and comparing results from 1,700 published assessments of the response that climate change will have on the yields of rice, maize and wheat. Due to increased interest in climate change research, the new study was able to create the largest dataset to date on crop responses.
Climate Change Will Reduce Crop Yields Sooner Than Thought
As food supplies have tightened, a new geopolitics of food has emerged—a world in which the global competition for land and water is intensifying and each country is fending for itself. We cannot claim that we are unaware of the trends that are undermining our food supply and thus our civilization. We know what we need to do.
Can We Prevent a Food Breakdown?
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that tropical grassy areas, which play a critical role in the world's ecology, are under threat as a result of ineffective management.
According to research published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, they are often misclassified, and this leads to degradation of the land, which has a detrimental effect on the plants and animals that are indigenous to these areas.
Tropical grassy areas cover a greater area than tropical rain forests, support about one fifth of the world's population, and are critically important to global carbon and energy cycles, and yet do not attract the interest levels that tropical rainforests do.
Tropical Grassy Ecosystems Under Threat, Scientists Warn
Researchers have published the largest soil DNA sequencing effort to date. What has emerged in this first of the studies to come from this project is a simple, elegant solution to sifting through the deluge of information gleaned, as well as a sobering reality check on just how hard a challenge these environments will be.
A Tale of Two Data Sets: New DNA Analysis Strategy Helps Researchers Cut Through the Dirt
In 1938 Walter Lowdermilk, a senior official in the Soil Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, traveled abroad to look at lands that had been cultivated for thousands of years, seeking to learn how these older civilizations had coped with soil erosion. He found that some had managed their land well, maintaining its fertility over long stretches of history, and were thriving. Others had failed to do so and left only remnants of their illustrious pasts.
Eroding Soils Darkening Our Future -- by Lester R. Brown
The theme of 2014 World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) is ecosystem-based adaptation.
With the slogan ‘Land Belongs to the Future, Let’s Climate Proof It’, the 2014 WDCD highlights the benefits of mainstreaming sustainable land management policies and practices into our collective response to climate change.
UNCCD aims to sensitize the public to the fact that desertification, land degradation, and drought dramatically affect the biodiversity resident in the soil. There is a close relationship between livelihood and ecosystem wellbeing, and soils that are rich in biodiversity. Healthy soils produce life, and yet soil health depends a lot on how individuals use their land. What we do to our soils determines the quality and quantity of the food we eat and how our ecosystems serve us. Our increasing ecological interdependence also means enhancing soils anywhere enhances life everywhere.
World Day to Combat Desertification: 17 June 2014
