Is soil just… dust in the wind?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Across the United States, human activity leaves soil exposed to erosion. How much are we losing?
Enter Shahab Aldin Shojaeezadeh and team from the University of Kassel.
Researchers combined erosion models, climate data, land maps, and satellite imagery. They estimated current soil loss and predicted future trends.
And? For every hectare, the nation loses an average of two tons of soil per year. Most of that loss comes from farmland.
By two-thousand fifty, soil erosion could rise up to twenty-one percent. That means less fertile land for growing food.
Whew. I guess you could say, we’ve really soiled ourselves this time.
Reference: Shojaeezadeh, S. A., Al-Wardy, M., Nikoo, M. R., Mooselu, M. G., Alizadeh, M. R., Adamowski, J. F., Moradkhani, H., Alamdari, N., & Gandomi, A. H. (2024). Soil erosion in the United States: Present and future (2020–2050). Catena. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2024.108123