Soil Erosion In Australia

Although there are many causes of the Dust Bowl the three most significant causes were the drought, removal of grass and the overproduction of crops in the Great Plains. The drought greatly dried out the land in the Great Plains. Removal of grass was also crucial during World War I because of the demand for wheat, but it was not during the Dust Bowl. By removing the grass it created much more room for storms to pick up the dirt and destroy

The topsoil, now loose, was easily picked up by wind, creating large waves of dust rushing towards homes and farms. Without crops, farmers lost valuable money, leaving them with two choices, to move away in order to make a living, or continue to lose money. “60 percent of the population moved from the western area...due to the drought that was killing cattle and ruining crops”(History.com). They had “set up the region for ecological disaster” (History.com) and could no longer live in the area. John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: “And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.

The method of dry farming would’ve benefitted the farmers in need of crops but the failure to acknowledge the technique had devastated farmers from all around in arid lands. In conclusion, the dust bowl was a man made phenomenon. Arising from the Great Depression, an even bigger problem came around the corner. The Dust Bowl affected many farmers and settlements across the land of 100 million acres. The Dust Bowl became known as the “dirty thirties” and became known as the only acceptable US drought.

The Dust Bowl was created by severe drought and many years of farmers not rotating their crops (Teisch). Crop rotation means planting different crops on the same piece of land to improve soil fertility and help control insects and diseases. For example, if a farmer grew corn one year and the next he grew beans, he would be rotating his crops. Few farmers used crop rotation

One of those farmland problems was “over managing” of the farmland and fields. This was a major cause of the Dust Bowl because it is what loosened up the soil. For example, farmers over-plowed the fields and as a result, pulled up the native grasses that had previously held the soil in place. They exchanged planting the prairie grass for instead attempting to harvest wheat, which they were unable to do because of external/natural factors. Turning to some effects of the farmland, the land was completely smothered in dust.

When they take up this prairie grass then the soil isn't so rich which starts to form these black blizzards. Ranchers and farmers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aggressively exploited the land and set up the region for ecological disaster. "Dust Bowl" When they dug up land they took out the grass and made the soil worse. Farmers were careless of what they dug up and took out. World war 1 enticed farmers to plow up millions of acres of natural grass cover to plant wheat.

People that lived in that area could not step outside or they would get dust in their lungs. Livestock could not breath or find food sources. Thousands of people lost their homes due to the storm. Changes in farming and agriculture in the early 1900s altered the landscape and soil creating the perfect environment for the Dust Bowl and impacted living conditions and economic policy. First, changes in farming and agriculture over the years led to the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl and impacted the Great Plains.

Evidence from Doc D, shows that over 100 million acres were harvested crops. How this was possible was advances in machinery. The tractor at the time was a new type of technology used to help farmers plant soil for crops. Since the soil was not watered because of the drought in the previous paragraph, this caused the soil to turn into dust. The third cause of the Dust Bowl was short grass prairie.

At the beginning, Egan used the phrase, “the Great Plowup.” He meant the Era of large success for the people, who settle in the Great Plains, by changing the grasses with crops of wheat and corn. Those people settled in the Great Plains after moving of the Indian, killing a lot of animals, and removing the few trees in the land. They plowed a million acres and replaced the grass which covered the land with the crops. These crops like a lot of water. The years from 1901 to 1930 were rainy years.

Like for instance“People caused the dust bowl because the people wanted more. They wanted more because it happened in the middle of the great depression. So there was a lot going on.“Dry land farming on the Great Plains led to the systematic destruction of the prairie grasses. In the ranching regions, overgrazing also destroyed large areas of grassland. Gradually, the land was laid bare, and significant environmental

In the years following World War I the increase in farmland only continued, but while farming stayed on an upward trend the average amount of rainfall per year was on a downward trend. As they reached the depression in the mid 1930’s the Great Plains states were in a drought falling from an average of 33.4 inches of rain a year to as low as 9.7 inches, while anything lower than 20 inches being considered catastrophic (Document E). This drought on its own would not have been problematic if not for the ever increasing amounts of topsoil that was left vulnerable by the farming methods of the time. All the loose topsoil due to farming methods hit by a nearly decade long drought and hard winds completely lifted the topsoil off of the ground and blew it away. Topsoil that originated in Texas was blown as far away as New

If the planting site does not look like this, do not expect much from your crop. Also be wary of soil that is infertile or acidic. When selecting a site, do pH tests on the soil. The pH should be above 6.5. If your soil is too acidic and you cannot afford to fertilize your alfalfa a lot, then do not plant alfalfa.

A Riparian Zone is an area next to a creek or river that is not mowed, where natural plant life is carefully cultivated. When you remove the natural plants along the river, the roots of the plants cease to hold the dirt on the riverbank in place, and runoff becomes a larger issue as the banks erode faster, polluting the water. However, the plants can fix this problem.The plants help avoid runoff because their roots absorb much of the extra water that washes pesticides into the river. Also, it anchors the dirt and prevents it from escaping the bank. (Chagrin River Watershed Partners inc, 2016) The riparian zone has some pros and cons.

For example, the farmers in Georgia lost 140 billion dollars in 2011 because the crops that didn’t get picked were left in the field to rot. However, many people without jobs would certainly jump to this chance for a

Another example, is in the serious informational text, “A Drought For Business: How Water Shortages Will Impact Your Bottom Line”, by Ashtyn Douglas, posted on May 27, 2015, tells from a farmer’s view, how the drought affects farming, but it is really about how the drought affects the citizens, to people worried about the effects of the drought. In the text it says, “ Direct costs to the agriculture industry totaled $1.5 billion in 2014.” In addition, because farmers can’t provide the crops for these businesses they are losing billions of dollars. Sooner or later those companies are going to have to shut down and that will be a huge