5 ms·
Is soil erosion ever naturally reversed ? It seems to me to be a one way downhill process ?
by home_project123 7y ago
Is soil erosion ever naturally reversed ?
It seems to me to be a one way downhill process ?
- maxerickson 7y agoSure, soil building happens naturally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_species https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_species
- brohee 7y agoObviously there was no soil at first since it's dead organic matter.
- olliej 7y agoYes, but that’s not “reversing” so much as completely rebuilding soil, which takes decades of no farming and no tillage. A lot of loss can also be trivially reduces by planting rows of trees between fields, which I saw all over the place in NZ, but haven’t seen elsewhere.
- brohee 7y agoPretty standard in Europe : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocage
- abraae 7y agoIt sure does, see Rangitoto Island for an example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangitoto_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangitoto_Island). A bare volcanic rock after its eruption 600 years ago, the island is now largely reforested. Lava fields contain no soil of the typical kind, so it must come from windblown matter and slow breaking-down processes of the native flora.
- Nasrudith 7y agoErosion is why there is soil in the first place. Moss and lichens for one create it from rocks.
- dredmorbius 7y agoNatural rates of formation are ~1 in/century (2.5 sanetimeter units).