Sustainability

Earth

Human beings and their activities can modify the natural landscape by building constructions, by obstructing waterways, by drilling through mountains, eliminating the vegetation on the mountain slopes. Often human interventions can be the cause of severe damages for nature. Furthermore, rains that tend to concentrate in short intense periods can provoke river floods, sudden inundations and a series of problems for the environment, nature, the economy and agricultural production. Also the soil, like the water and the air, is threatened by pollution. For example polluted underground waterways carry the poisonous substances into the ground, and therefore also pollute the soil. This problem is aggravated by the difficulty to eliminate particularly toxic waste, and the use of chemical substances in agriculture. A very serious consequence of soil pollution is that the agricultural products that we eat are often full of the poisonous substances produced by this pollution. Karst aquifers are a very important source of water in a large number of regions of the Earth: karst soils are by their own nature characterized by absence of water on the surface, and all the circulation of water takes place underground. These are resources that are very delicate to utilize and to be protected as they are particularly vulnerable to pollutants and excessive exploitation by man.