Sustainable agriculture
As we have seen, the soil is essentially important for human survival. Men have developed agricultural techniques that allow to obtain good productions at limited costs. Sustainable agriculture derives from the integration of traditional agricultural techniques, that use chemical products like fertilizers and phytosanitary products, with low-environmental impact biological techniques that require a deep knowledge of complex interactions between the soil, water, vegetation and animals. Each year 30-80 billion tons of soil are lost due to erosion: it is as if a train full of earth was unloaded 12 times a year in the space. One of the most efficient techniques uses some plants, especially herbaceous plants that, keeping earth particles in their roots, reduce the erosive effect of wind and water. Often herbaceous varieties are seeded after covering the soil with a thick biodegradable net, of vegetal origin (raffia or hemp), which supports the seeds during their germination. Farmers adopt some measures to reduce or block the wind or water erosion. For example, they plant trees along the borders of the fields, they plant herbaceous crops (like cereals) in order to cover the soil during those months that are most at risk of erosion (autumn and spring), they work less on the soil, etc.
Special reports
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13 May 2013
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Earth viewed from above
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30 April 2019
Urban woods
When walking along a tree-lined avenue in a crowded and traffic-congested city, wrapped up in our daily commitments, we do…
12 April 2019
Easter with extinct friends
Easter Island is shaped like a triangle with three extinct volcanoes placed at the vertices, and has a total area…
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Citizen science, research conducted by ordinary citizens
When we think of scientists, we often imagine people wearing white coats, shut up in a laboratory working with test…
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13 May 2013
Small steps, great footprints
Have you ever wondered how much space is taken up by an apple or a steak?...
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28 August 2020
The Earth seen from above: signs of fires
This image was taken by the ASTER sensor installed on the NASA TERRA satellite platform. The image was taken on…
15 July 2020
Earth viewed from above
Remote satellite sensing: what it is and what it is used for In the scientific field, the images produced by…
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13 May 2013
Small steps, great footprints
Have you ever wondered how much space is taken up by an apple or a steak?...
From the Multimedia section
Facts
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Laterite and bauxite deposits
These deposits can be observed in those tropical areas that are characterized by...
And in underground tunnels?
There are groups of terrestrial animals that eat insects, worms and other invertebrates...
What about the permafrost?
In Sub Arctic Swedish regions, some scientists studied the changes of permafrost...
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The most populated cities in the world
In the last 50 years the world population has passed from 2.5 billion to 6 billion...
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Mountains on the Earth
The different landscapes that we analysed in the previous section are distributed...
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24 February 2011
Laterite and bauxite deposits
These deposits can be observed in those tropical areas that are characterized by...
And in underground tunnels?
There are groups of terrestrial animals that eat insects, worms and other invertebrates...
-
What about the permafrost?
In Sub Arctic Swedish regions, some scientists studied the changes of permafrost...
-
The most populated cities in the world
In the last 50 years the world population has passed from 2.5 billion to 6 billion...
-
24 February 2011
Laterite and bauxite deposits
These deposits can be observed in those tropical areas that are characterized by...
-
And in underground tunnels?
There are groups of terrestrial animals that eat insects, worms and other invertebrates...
-
What about the permafrost?
In Sub Arctic Swedish regions, some scientists studied the changes of permafrost...