While agriculture and crops are important to us, research shows that farming is helping humans to erode the earth at an elevated rate. (Photo by Tijmen Van Dobbenburgh)
New research shows that human beings are causing a lot more erosion on the earth’s surface than all the natural forces combined. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
New research shows that human beings are causing a lot more erosion on the
earth’s surface than all the natural forces combined. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:
Researcher Bruce Wilkinson looked at prehistoric sedimentary rock records
and determined the natural rate of erosion before human beings walked the
face of the earth. His research found that human activity, mainly farming,
on average accelerates the long-term erosion rates by a factor of 15. Wilkinson, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Michigan, says this has important consequences for conserving enough farmland to feed the world’s population:
“There’s something like 40% of the earth’s surface is now under agriculture
and we’ve about used it up. We’re losing about as much land every year from
erosion as we are gaining by chopping down more forests.”
Wilkinson says feeding the world’s population will become even harder as the
number of people on earth is expected to double in the next the 40 years.
His research will be published in the journal Geology.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.