Soil Background:

Soil is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Earth's body of soil is the pedosphere, which has four important functions: it is a medium for plant growth; it is a means of water storage, supply and purification; it is a modifier of Earth's atmosphere; it is a habitat for organisms; all of which, in turn, modify the soil.

Soil is a product of the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and its parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, it is considered an ecosystem by soil ecologists.

Most soils have a dry bulk density (density of soil taking into account voids when dry) between 1.1 and 1.6 g/cm3, while the soil particle density is much higher, in the range of 2.6 to 2.7 g/cm3. Little of the soil of planet Earth is older than the Pleistocene and none is older than the Cenozoic, although fossilized soils are preserved from as far back as the Archean.

Importance and Functions of Soil:

Soil is our life support system. Soils provide anchorage for roots, hold water and nutrients. Soils are home to myriad micro-organisms that fix nitrogen and decompose organic matter, and armies of microscopic animals as well as earthworms and termites. We build on soil as well as with it and in it. Soil functions are general capabilities of soils that are important for various agricultural, environmental, nature protection, landscape architecture and urban applications. Six key soil functions are:

-Food and other biomass production

-Environmental Interaction: storage, filtering, and transformation

-Biological habitat and gene pool

-Source of raw materials

-Physical and cultural heritage

-Platform for man-made structures: buildings, highways

Less CO2:

By building healthy soil we can pull billions of tons of carbon out of our atmosphere. Carbon is stored in soil when plants push their carbon sugars out of their roots to feed soil organisms. Dead soil means no carbon sequestration.

Healthy Food:

Nutrient-dense food comes from healthy living soil. The plant feeds the soil organisms and the organisms pull in hard to access minerals and water – increasing root capacity 1000s of times. Dead soil means less nutrients in our food.

Restored Habitats:

Healthy soil can hold more than seven billion organisms in one teaspoon. When the soil food web is regenerated from the bottom up, above ground habitats can be restored. Dead soil means all animal and plant life suffers.

Drought Resistance:

Healthy soil has more soil organic matter (which can hold 20x its weight in water). Living soil has aggregates which allows water to infiltrate, reduces runoff and restores underground water. Dead soil means limited water absorption.

Clean Water:

Soil organic matter is 50% carbon. Carbon in soil acts just like your own home carbon water filter, purifying and removing unwanted heavy-metals and toxins from the water supply. Dead soil causes contamination of watersheds

Soil Conservation:

Soil conservation is the preventing of soil loss from erosion or reduced fertility caused by over usage, acidification, salinization or other chemical soil contamination.

Some of the methods for soil conservation:

-Farming practices like Contour ploughing and Terrace Farming

-Proper waste management

-Cover crops/crop rotation

-Soil-conservation farming

-Salinity management

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