People Erode Soil 100 Times Faster Than Nature (article)
[ copied from http://news.discovery.com/earth/people-erode-soil-100-times-faster-than-nature-150114.htm ] Jan 14, 2015 12:51 PM ET // by Patrick J. Kiger Play Video Soil is washed away by the Chattahoochee River in the early 1970s. Cutting down or burning native forests and starting intensive agriculture -- that is, industrial-scale farming, designed to produce high yields of crops and/or animals -- can accelerate erosion dramatically, reports a newly-published study from researchers at the University of Vermont. It causes so much damage, in fact, that in a few decades as much soil is lost as would naturally occur over thousands of years. NEWS: Are We At Risk For Another Dust Bowl? The researchers, who studied 10 large river basins in the southeastern United States, found that the damage started to occur hundreds of years ago, when large numbers of settlers arrived from Europe,…