By:

By:Boggle
Boggle

How humans cause (or

speed up) erosion
Ms. Rinesmith earth science

Bibliography
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www.n
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.com

Introduction: Human
Erosion
Believe it or not, humans are effecting erosion!
Even with everyday activities, we are making
erosion happen more and more each day. This has
advantages and disadvantages

First, lets see

how we are
speeding up
erosion

How do we speed up
How do we speed
up erosion? There are
erosion?

multiple ways. Take construction for

example. When we make new buildings, we
are damaging the soil and moving it to new
places. The same thing happens when we
plant vegetation. Also, two more big
causes are deforestation and grazing. We
expose more soil to natural forces.

The Advantages
Like I said, there are advantages and
disadvantages. There is an advantage that is good
for the environment. Soil erosion helps to carry
away unwanted greenhouse gasses. It also does
help our society. We want more buildings but often
dont care about the area we are building in. We
can also make more farmland, and just send
unneeded soil somewhere else.

Advantages Explained
On the last slide, I mentioned the
advantages to human erosion like
construction, farms, and carrying
away greenhouse gases. Most of
these advantages benefit us, but we
dont realize that they all are
creating too much erosion.

The Disadvantages
Sadly, there are consequences. Human
activity usually causes 10 to 15 times
more soil erosion than normal. If we
keep this up, we will erode so fast that
nature wont be able to keep up and
renew the soil. We also (on average) use
up 75 GIGATONS more soil than we
should.

Disadvantages Explained
We use too much of the soil. In fact,
we use so much that the natural forces
of erosion cant keep up with it. The
soil has to have time to renew. If we
dont let it renew, we wont be able to
use that soil anymore.

What We Dont Want

In 1934, this same problem of humans
effecting erosion was happening in
some southwestern states. The soil was
being used up and broken down so
much that it was all turning to lifeless
dust. This started to create dust storms
that could stretch for miles. This was
Actual Picture
called the Dust Bowl

Solutions!
Here are the two solutions
that I came up with:

Determine what is or
is not a good area for
construction or tree
chopping.

Manage water
correctly and
dont put too
much into the
soil.

END

Written by: BoggleThePenguin

Presented by: BoggleThePenguin
Brought to you by: Ms. Rinesmith
Dedicated to: Nick
Thank you for your encouragement!