Human impact on soil quality becoming more apparent

New research is suggesting that since humans have begun to colonize and populate North America, the rate at which the soil has been eroding is a 100 times faster than the it would be without humans. When european settles started to clear forests and set up agricultural establishments, it lead to the increase is erosion rates and increased sediment collecting in water ways. It would normally take nature 2500 years for a the soil to erode an inch. In the the time frame we are in now, it only takes 25 years, as apposed to 2,500, for a inch of soil to erode. This hints towards signs that, as a nation, we are only perpetuating a practice that the earth is unable to sustain. In order for the human race to continue, more sustainable methods must be adapted into our ways of life. When the waterways were looked at, only about 6% of that eroded soil ended up going down with the water. This is still a pretty impressive number as sediment build up can lead to floods and fish habitat destruction. The rest of this sediment is expected to build up in valleys and the bottoms of hill slopes. The full arcticle can be read here.

 Credit: Paul Bierman, UVM