Search results for "Soil genetic erosion"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Soil genetic erosion: New conceptual developments in soil security
2019
In the last decades, in some Mediterranean areas, pedodiversity decreased mainly due to pedotechnique application in large-scale farming that transformed original soils into Anthrosols. Supporting the consideration that soils can be considered as living systems, the original concept of 'soil genetic erosion' is re-proposed. Data, extrapolated and modeled from a Soil Information System in a study case representative of a Mediterranean landscape, predicted that most of the soil types would disappear in few years leading to a decrease of the soil diversity and originating soil genetic erosion. This circumstance is intentionally here told in form of a story where the fairy tale characters are s…
Soil genetic erosion: a new concept for a new environmental challenge and a new soil paradigm
2018
The author proposes a new concept of soil erosion to shed new light on soil erosion an ecological environment conservation in order that politicians and administrators could pay great attention to preserve soil resources. A new concept of soil erosion is suggested by proposing ideas, explaining concepts, summarizing and case studies. The economic value should be assigned to the soil ecosystem services and the new concept of soil erosion that could be called “soil genetic erosion” is proposed. Soils are very diverse natural resources that positively affect and promote the economy of the social systems if they are maintained in good health.
The “Soil Genetic Erosion”: a new threat for soils?
2015
During the 1990’s the concept of pedodiversity started to be diffused in the scientific literature and the decrement of the soil diversity in space and time - particularly due to human activity - has been seen as a sort of underhand problem affecting soil ecosystems, considering that different soil types face gradual or drastic reduction or complete loss of their unique “genetic features”. Pedodiversity has received considerable recent interest, especially as peculiar aspect of biodiversity and has been assessed by several authors by applying diversity indices used in ecology. This paper takes into consideration the influence of human activities on the loss of pedodiversity in a Mediterrane…
The “genetic erosion” of the soil ecosystem
2013
Abstract This paper takes into consideration the influence of human activities on the loss of pedodiversity in a Mediterranean area due to large scale farming. In particular it examines the quantitative and qualitative soil changes in a period of 53 years (from 1955 to 2008) evaluating the loss of soil diversity at soil subgroups level of the USDA Soil Taxonomy system. The following indices were used: richness; Shannon’s diversity index; Simpson diversity index; Shannon’s evenness index; Simpson’s evenness index. In this case study, considering what we observed in time, the human intervention in soil transformation could increase the diversity in the landscape in an initial phase, but forwa…