Provides land/space on which to live Provides necessary resources required

for survival, like food and fuel

Over the past hundreds of years, our use of the land has changed drastically

We have changed from a largely rural area to more agriculture based, and from there to more industry-based

Deforestation Agriculture Urbanization

Forests are cut down for the purpose of building and agriculture

Removing plants increases the rate of erosion, because the plant roots no longer secure the soil in one place

Increasing population has led to the need for more land space for homes, resulting in use of more natural resources and limiting availability of farmland.

In addition to losing soil by deforestation, we also lose tons of topsoil each year through agriculture

Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 2 inches. It has the highest amount of organic matter and microorganisms, and is where plants obtain most of their nutrients

Traditional agriculture techniques, like plowing, remove topsoil and require replanting each year. The United States alone loses almost 3 tons of topsoil per acre per year.

Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment.  Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.

Sustainability is important to making sure that we have and will continue to have,  the water, materials, and resources to protect human health and our environment.

Sustainability is about treating all parties fairly. Farmers getting a fair market price for their goods, consumers paying prices reflecting reasonable profits set by producers of goods/services, workers receiving appropriate wages for the job done under safe, acceptable working conditions. All the while, the underlining concern is being responsible for our use of natural resources, being fair to the environment as well.

Preserving fertile topsoil is essential to feeding the world’s rapidly growing population. This can be done through:

(1) Windbreaks (2) Terracing hillsides (3) Contour plowing (4) Crop rotation

Windbreaks are located along crop field borders or within the field itself

How do windbreaks help to reduce erosion rates?

Terracing is the building of wide flat rows of terraces on mountainside and hillsides. The terraces look like big staircases. They hold rainwater so that it will not wash away the soil.

Instead of plowing up and down, farmers plow across a slope. In this way, the soil forms a ridge that slows down the flow of water, so soil is not carried away.

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area in back to back seasons. It maintains a balance of nutrients in the soil.

Construction along the shoreline increases the rate of erosion beyond the already high rate of erosion experienced along shorelines due to the ocean.

Structures can be built to protect a coast from erosion or to prevent movement of sand along a beach:

Groins Breakwaters Seawalls

Groins are barriers built at right angles to the beach to trap sand that is moving parallel to the shore. Groins are built to maintain or widen beaches that are losing sand.

Breakwaters are built parallel to the shoreline off the coast to limit the force of oncoming waves.

Structure designed to prevent impact of tides and waves on property, built directly along the shoreline.

Structure designed to prevent impact of tides and waves on property, built directly along the shoreline.

Beach nourishment projects add large quantities of sand to the beach system. It is an attempt to stabilize shorelines without adding protective features.

Temporary fix; waves will eventually erode the replacement sand as well

Expensive: costs lots of money to transport sand to the beach from offshore areas

Negative effects on marine life: dredging sand off the coast replaces natural, coarse sand with softer, muddier sand that increases the cloudiness (turbidity) of the water and can kill offshore coral reefs

Construction along mountainsides can decrease the stability of the land, allowing for a greater rate of erosion. Mass movements (ex: rockslides) are more probable.

Screen mesh (called slope revetment) draped over a steep slope keeps loosened rocks from entering roadways.

Human activities or natural processes can remove some soil from the base of a slope, making the remaining upper part of the slope less stable and more prone to mass movement.  Construction of a retaining wall can support the upper part of a slope.

While harvesting trees, leave enough mature trees to anchor the slope and protect soil from excessive erosion due to runoff.

Fossil fuels are energy sources that formed over thousands to millions of years as a result of compression and decomposition of plant and animal material.

Considered to be a nonrenewable resource.

Harvesting (peat and wood) Mining (coal and uranium) Drilling (oil and natural gas)

Least intrusive method of obtaining energy, less disturbance of the lithosphere

Resources, such as peat and wood, can be restored over time

Mining is the process of removing metals and minerals from the lithosphere, often times at great depths beneath the surface. Much more intrusive and destructive than harvesting. EX: coal

(1) Deforestation destroys local habitats (2) Land and water pollution occurring during

process of mining (3) Erosion rates increase at site of mining

Drilling is the process of removing fluid, typically crude oil or natural gas, that is beneath Earth’s surface

Not as intrusive as mining, but not as environmentally friendly as harvesting

1) Possible oil spills2) Infrastructure development for drilling

fields infringes on local habitats3) Byproducts produced by drilling pollute

land and water

Fracking is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth

Concerns about fracking include: (1) Groundwater contamination (2) Triggering earthquakes? (3) Dangerous explosions

North Carolina is believed to hold 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas trapped in shale gas formations underground and concentrated in Chatham, Lee and Moore counties.

Supporters of fracking in the legislature said natural gas would produce a domestic fuel to help offset oil imported from hostile regimes as well as dirty coal mined by mountain-top removal. They also touted the creation of several hundred jobs over seven years.

Critics talked of short-term jobs, destroyed roadways, marred landscapes, polluted air and contaminated water