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What Is Healthy Soil? | Earth Wise

August 30, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Soil supports life by providing many critical ecosystem services. For example, soil acts as a water filter, a growing medium, and provides habitat for billions of organisms. Soil is also the foundation of our cities and towns, and the basis of global agroecosystems, which provide humans with feed, fiber, food, and fuel.

For all of these reasons and many more, having healthy soil is vital. But what does soil health mean? And how should it be measured?

According to new analysis by researchers from Cranfield University and Nottingham University in the U.K., how we think about, measure, and study soil must change in order to better understand how to manage this resource effectively.

While the term ‘soil health’ is widely used, it means different things to different people. There is no single agreed upon way to gauge the overall health of soil.

Current approaches to assess soil health measure individual soil properties and use findings to assign a single number giving an overall score. But according to the research team, this does not reflect the wider system perspective that’s needed to fully evaluate the health of soil over time.

Instead, the researchers propose a new system to assess soil health based on a hierarchical framework that takes in several measures, including signs of life, signs of function, signs of complexity, and signs of emergence, which is the extent to which soils recover from multiple stressors.

This new approach, which can be applied to all soils, moves us closer to an interdisciplinary understanding of the whole picture of soil health. After all, healthy soil is fundamental to our survival.

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We need to change how we think about soil

Photo, posted April 8, 2008, courtesy of Brian Boucheron via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Invasive Species On Ships In Antarctica | Earth Wise

February 23, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is the most isolated marine environment on Earth. Antarctica’s native species have been isolated for the last 15-30 million years. As a result, wildlife there has not evolved the ability to tolerate the presence of many groups of species.

New research by the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey has traced the global movements of all the ships entering Antarctic water and has found that Antarctica is connected to all regions of the globe via ship activity to an extent much greater than previously thought. Fishing, tourism, research, and supply ships are exposing Antarctica to invasive, non-native species that threaten the existing ecosystems.

In all, the research identified over 1,500 ports with links to Antarctica. From all these places, non-native species including mussels, barnacles, crabs, and algae attach themselves to ships’ hulls. The process is known as biofouling.

The greatest concern is the movement of species from pole to pole. These species are already cold-adapted. They may come on tourist or research vessels that spend the northern hemisphere summer in the Arctic before traveling south for the Antarctic summer season.

Mussels have no competitors in Antarctica should they be accidentally introduced. Shallow water crabs would introduce a new form of predation that Antarctic animals have never encountered before.

Current biosecurity measures to protect Antarctica, such as cleaning ships’ hulls, focus on a small group of so-called gateway ports. The new findings indicate that these measures need to be expanded to protect Antarctic waters from non-native species.

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Invasive species ‘hitchhiking’ on ships threaten Antarctica’s unique ecosystems

Photo, posted April 12, 2016, courtesy of NOAA’s National Ocean Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Recovering Marine Life By 2050 | Earth Wise

May 27, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Marine life has faced challenges for a long time. There have been centuries of overfishing in many places and pollution of various types has been especially harmful in recent decades. But despite all of this, a new scientific review published in the journal Nature contends that marine life in the world’s oceans could be fully restored in as little as 30 years provided that aggressive conservation policies are adopted.

The research spotlights the strong resiliency of ocean animals and cites the successful recovery of a number of marine species, including humpback whales.

The study indicates that nations around the world must agree to designate 20 to 30 percent of the oceans as marine protected areas, institute sustainable fishing guidelines, and regulate pollution. These measures would not come cheaply. The estimated cost would be around $20 billion a year.

However, the report also estimates that the economic return on this investment would be tenfold and would create millions of new jobs. Rebuilding fish stocks and maintaining sustainable fishing policies could increase global profits of the seafood industry by over $50 billion a year. Conserving coastal wetlands could save the insurance industry more than $50 billion a year as well by reducing storm damage.

A major sticking point, however, is climate change. Climate change is increasing ocean temperatures and driving acidification. Unless these changes are brought under control, the restoration of marine life is not going to be successful. We have reached the point where it is within our power to choose between a future with a resilient and vibrant ocean or an irreversibly disrupted ocean. Whether we embrace that challenge remains to be seen.

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Marine Life Could Recover By 2050 With the Right Policies, Study Finds

Photo, posted April 20, 2012, courtesy of Matthias Hiltner via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Smog And Solar Power

January 22, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

China has been struggling with some of the worst air pollution in the world. Beijing frequently sits under a brown blanket made of exhaust gases from industry, cars and coal fires, which dump harmful particulate matter, soot, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the air.

The human health consequences are severe. According to the World Health Organization,air pollution contributes to about 1.6 million premature deaths in China each year. World-wide, air pollution is implicated in over 7 million deaths annually.

Faced with this air pollution crisis, China has undertaken a wide variety of measures to improve its air and curb carbon dioxide emissions alongthe way. Among other things, China has invested heavily in the deployment of solar power and has plans for ever greater expansion of solar power in the future.

A study by researchers at ETH in Zurich looked at the impact of China’s air pollution on the production of solar energy. The smog in China’s cities reduces the amount of solar radiation that reaches the ground and therefore significantly reduces the power output of solar energy systems. According to the study, solar radiation would increase by an average of 11% nationwide as a result of strict air pollution control measures. In some places, cleaning up the air would result in 26% more energy production.

China’s electric power industry is the world’s largest electricity producer, having passed the United States in 2011. Two-thirds of the electricity in China still comes from coal, which, apart from the serious climate and health consequences associated with its use, continues to make it more difficult to switch to clean solar power. Much work remains to be done.

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Fighting smog supports solar power

Photo, posted February 7, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.