Positive significance of soil for humans. Introduction, soil, importance of soil, soil structure - soils and farming

You can often hear the expression “the earth is the breadwinner,” but people often do not attach any meaning to it. But it would be more correct to say that grass and trees grow, wheat sways in the field and forests rustle only because we have soil.

The soil began to form along with the very first living beings appearing on the planet, so we owe our lives to them, and not only in genetic terms. For a long time, humanity has known that the surrounding reality has an incredible property, which was called “fertility.”

The earth's soil, to which the animal and plant world owes its existence, manifested this property more closely, more noticeably and clearly. It is an indispensable condition for the life of animals, plants and humans. Cultivating all kinds of agricultural crops, people noticed that fruits grown from the seeds of the same plant turn out to be different in different areas of the earth.

Soil also plays a significant role in natural environment human habitation. Soil, being part of the group of natural resources of a non-renewable nature, is the most important means of agricultural production. All kinds of international agreements and declarations on issues related to environmental management affirm the importance of soil as a real human asset, which absolutely all people are obliged to rationally use and protect.

At the moment, the problem of human interaction with nature has become particularly acute. It becomes clear that solving problematic issues related to maintaining the level of quality of human life is unimaginable without understanding current environmental problems. It is the soil that determines a large number of processes that occur in the biosphere. The great importance of soil lies in the reliable accumulation of organic substances, various chemical elements and energy.

Soil performs the functions of a biological destroyer, absorber and effective neutralizer of various contaminants. In addition, soil cover is the most significant natural formation. Its importance in the life of human society can be determined by the fact that soil cover is the primary source of various foods, which provides about 95-97 percent of all food resources for the world's population.

Nature has endowed our world with soil, which is the fundamental criterion for the existence of all life on Earth. The world receives all its vital elements from the soil. That is why it needs to be protected, fertilized and freed from negative factors.

Soil in nature

Soil is one of the main components of the pedosphere - the geophysical shell of the planet.

The main function of soil, as a separate element in nature, is to support life as a whole. After all, it is precisely this that enables the existence, growth and reproduction of all living things - various microorganisms, ecosystems, plants, animals, and humans.

Soil is the basis for the formation of all vital elements - water and mineral nutrients in the form of chemical compounds.

Example: 1) plant in a pot with sand; 2) a plant in a pot with clay; 3) plant in a pot with soil

Soil is not only a necessary condition for life on Earth, but also a consequence of this life.

Soil is necessary for energy storage. It is in it that the processes of photosynthetic activity of the plant world take place. An example of such activity is the use by humans of huge amounts of fuel, food and feed formed in the bowels of the earth's cover. Coal, gas, oil, peat are all a consequence of photosynthetic processes.

Soil plays a big role in nature. It ensures the non-stop interaction of geological and small biological metabolism. The cycle of oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen occurs precisely through it. Through the soil, these elements enter the roots of plants, creating the necessary conditions for food chains. Thus, it regulates the composition of the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

Soil regulates various processes occurring in nature. One of them is the biosphere process. The role of soil in this process is to stabilize the density and productivity of all life on Earth.

Land resources in human life

Land resources are lands used by humans in economic activities.

Land resources are determined according to several criteria. The relief of a particular area plays a huge role. It may be convenient, inconvenient or unsuitable for a particular activity. Lowland areas are suitable for the cultivation of cultivated species or certain cultivation. Mountainous and hilly terrain is not convenient enough for irrigation or fertilization of plant species. And there are territories in which it is impossible to engage in any purposeful activity - dissected ravines, rocky hills, swamps and others.

The fertility of land resources is also important for the implementation human activity. A good soil cover will be able to nourish all plants with a sufficient amount of necessary substances and elements.

Soil and land resources play an important role in human life. It is from the soil that we get everything we need for life - food resources.

Land resources help in carrying out agricultural activities and forestry. The earth is also the source building materials, thanks to which modern structures are built.

Soil pollution

Almost every type of human activity causes enormous damage to the soil cover. Industrial waste of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, waste chemical industry, organic chemical compounds, inorganic chemical products - all this affects the quality of soil and land resources.

Enterprises that do not install cleaning filters emit sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, dust, ash, smoke, sulfates and nitrates into the atmosphere.

Enterprises engaged in simple organic synthesis leave their mark on the soil. They throw away technological waste that is not recycled in the natural environment.

The production of high molecular weight compounds affects the condition of the soil. When carrying out such activities, monomers, catalysts, solvents, stabilizers, plastics, rubber and other substances that pollute the soil environment are released into nature.

The soil is located on the border of contact and interaction of three planetary shells - the lithosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere, therefore, according to soil scientists, it forms a special geosphere - pedosphere, or the Earth's soil cover (Fig. 2).

At the same time, soil is a component of the biosphere - the area of ​​distribution of life on Earth. This unique position of the soil determines its role in natural processes and in human life.
1. Ensuring the existence of life on Earth. This is the main function of soil. From the soil, plants, and through them animals and humans, receive nutrients and water to create their biomass. Land plants take root in the soil, and a huge number of soil-dwelling animals and microorganisms live. Without soil, it is impossible for natural biocenoses - communities of living organisms - to exist on Earth. The properties of the soil, primarily its fertility, along with climatic factors, determine the distribution and abundance of living organisms on the Earth’s land.
Soil is therefore an integral component natural ecosystems land, and their structural unit (ecosystem of the lowest rank) is biogeocenoses. This role of soil was emphasized by Academician Vladimir Nikolaevich Sukachev, who first proposed the concept of “biogeocenosis.”
2. Ensuring a constant cycle of substances is the second important function of the soil. On the surface of the earth, rocks undergo weathering, as a result of which elements of mineral nutrition for living organisms accumulate in the soil. These elements are absorbed from the soil by plants and return to the soil through the food chain system (plants - animals - microorganisms). This constitutes a small (biological) cycle of substances.
From the soil, elements are partially carried into bodies of water and ultimately end up in the World Ocean, where they participate in the formation of sedimentary rocks, which in the geological history of the Earth can undergo deep transformations or again come to the surface. This is how the large (geological) cycle of substances proceeds. Consequently, the soil is a link and regulator of the interaction of these two cycles of substances.
3. Providing the bulk of food received by humans is another important function of the soil. Therefore, in natural environment soil plays a significant role in human habitat: it serves as the main means of agricultural production, the economic basis of human existence.
The importance of soil as the universal heritage of mankind is emphasized by all major international declarations and agreements (World Conservation Strategy, World Soil Charter, Framework for World Soil Policy). The soil is the property of all humanity, so we must use and protect it rationally. This is our duty to the modern generation of people and descendants.
The concept of soil is consonant with the concept of land, but they are not synonymous. Soil is a natural-historical concept that relates only to a natural object. Land is not only a natural-historical, but at the same time a socio-economic concept related to a natural resource. It includes not only the soil itself, but also a certain part of the earth’s surface, its position in geographic space and socio-economic potential.

This is an irreplaceable element of the earth's surface, thanks to which the existence of plant and animal organisms (as well as microorganisms) becomes possible.

The interaction here is twofold: all living things would not exist without soil, but the soil itself is the result of the vital activity of these organisms. The soil makes up one of the planetary shells, which is commonly called the pedosphere.

Soil and the cycle of substances. Thanks to a specific mixture of soil elements, water, air and organic components, processes of processing, decomposition and transformation of many chemical compounds occur.

Thanks to this, it becomes possible to provide nutrition primarily for plants, and indirectly for animals and humans.

What is the importance of soil in nature?

The importance of soil in nature can be divided depending on its functions, the main of which are the following:

• Concentration of energy reserves due to the provision of vital processes of plants and their implementation of photosynthesis (and therefore the formation of many minerals).
• Creation of interaction between small and large cycles of substances - biological and geological.
• Implementation of regulation of basic processes in the biosphere - regulation of the productivity of living organisms and the density of their population on the surface of the planet.
• Participation in the interconnected process of adjusting atmospheric and hydrosphere compositions.
• Ensuring normal life processes of terrestrial organisms.
• Ecological role - participation in the functionality of the ecosystem and how component biogeocenosis.
• An important role in the complex mechanisms of functioning and regulation of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and ethnosphere.

The importance of soil in human life

By its very existence, soil provides the opportunity for life for humans and other living organisms. Soil and people are inextricably linked with each other. No wonder the first effective technologies human civilization there were agriculture and livestock raising - that is, in fact, the maximum ways to use land resources.

Energy function

The soil creates conditions for plant life, which convert solar energy through photosynthesis into organic energy. Gradually, plants and other organic remains turn into coal, oil, gas, peat, thereby creating gigantic reservoirs of energy for human civilization.

Soil is an active participant in the cycle of organic and geological components. Such important structural elements as nitrogen, oxygen and carbon undergo transformation processes with the help of soil. Through complex transformations, these chemical elements are both released into the hydrosphere and atmosphere and become a source of organic synthesis for plants.

It is very important that the soil contains the mineral elements necessary for the normal functioning of the human body.

Natural regulation of populations

The accumulation of plant and animal organisms (as well as humans) always occurs in those areas of the planet where the soils are most fertile and the climate is favorable for life. And vice versa - soils with low fertility reduce the possibility of flora and fauna existing on them, thereby regulating the numbers of certain species and populations.

IN socially The role of soil is manifested in the fact that highly productive lands become the cause of territorial conflicts between countries and peoples.

Soil as a means of production

There is no doubt that soil is a valuable input for agricultural and livestock production. You should always take into account the importance of preserving the ecological state of the soil when carrying out various agricultural works and organizing types of production associated with the release of toxins and Wastewater into the environment.

The future of life on the planet directly depends on the condition of the soil. In addition, soil is necessary to create housing and roads.

Protective function of the soil

Soil not only gives life, but also neutralizes substances dangerous to human and animal life. These include harmful chemical compounds, radioactive substances, and dangerous bacterial and viral pathogens. All these components accumulate in the soil and are gradually utilized.

However, the buffer margin of soil strength is not unlimited, and if it is constantly exceeded, it will cease to cope with its protective functions.

Soil plays an important role in the natural human environment. First of all, because soil is the main means of agricultural production, belonging to the category of non-renewable natural resources. International declarations and agreements on environmental management issues - “World Conservation Strategy”, “World Soil Charter”, “Fundamentals of World Soil Policy” - affirm the importance of soil as the universal heritage of humanity, which should be rationally used and protected by all people of the Earth. Therefore, land use issues affect a complex of complex problems of a socio-economic nature: problems of land ownership, land legislation, land law, economic assessment lands and others, no less pressing...

Towards environment And for humans, soil plays another important role - protective. Having the ability to absorb and retain various pollutants, including radionuclides, binding them chemically and physically, the soil thereby serves as a kind of filter that prevents the entry of these compounds into natural waters, plants, and further along the food chain into animal organisms and man. However, the possibilities of the soil in this regard are not limitless, and the level of technogenic pressure is increasing, so cases of dangerous soil contamination and subsequent poisoning of people are increasingly observed.
Human health is largely determined by the environment in which he is forced to live, and, as it turns out, soil plays an important role in this matter.

A number of diseases, the causes of which were previously unknown, are associated with certain soil conditions: an excess or deficiency of chemical elements, a violation of their ratio. Most widely famous examples From this area are diseases of the thyroid gland (goiter and Graves' disease), lesions of tooth enamel (caries and fluorosis), but their list is very large and continues to expand. Thus, there is information about the connection with the characteristics of the soil cover even of cancer. Recent studies by oncologists of the geographic distribution of stomach cancer have shown that in Tunisia, Egypt, and Afghanistan, the incidence of stomach cancer is significantly lower than in England, France, and the USA. Clinical studies have suggested an increased risk of this disease with insufficient magnesium in food (and the root cause is the chemical composition of the soils on which the plants grow), as well as a violation of the ratio in the soil solution between Ca, Mg, Mn ions. But even earlier, in the 60s of the last century, this pattern was established using the example of the Rostov region in working together soil scientists (Professor V.V. Akimtsev) and oncologists (Professor Z.M. Mitlin). They then published the book “Soils and Health”, which has long become a second-hand rarity.

Such diseases, according to the proposal of A.P. Vinogradov were called endemic, and territories with abnormal contents of chemical elements were called endemic provinces. V.V. Kowalski compiled a map of the biogeochemical zones and provinces of the USSR, which is presented as an illustration for this chapter. On it, he identified areas of distribution of a number of human and animal diseases caused by the properties of soils and waters. The solution to the origin of endemic diseases made it possible to develop measures to neutralize these phenomena.

Thus, many important issues in medicine and veterinary medicine cannot be resolved without taking into account the characteristics of the soil cover. And in 1986, within the framework of the International Society of Soil Sciences, it was organized working group"Soils and Geomedicine". This created the prerequisites for the identification of a special section in soil science - medical.

There is another area of ​​human activity where taking into account the properties of soils and soil cover as a whole is absolutely necessary. Soils have different engineering and geological properties. The durability of wooden, metal and concrete structures, building foundations and their walls depends on the chemical composition of soil and groundwater and on the interaction between building materials and soil. The construction of roads and airfields is also based on the scientific principles of soil science, since the properties of soils determine the durability of coatings and these structures.

I hope I was able to convince you of the exceptional importance and uniqueness of “the most beautiful creation of the Almighty.” But current state Our country's soil cover is unsatisfactory and continues to deteriorate. To overcome further development soil degradation, including the famous Russian black soil - national treasure countries, measures are needed to protect them, and, above all, to improve land legislation. Developing a respectful attitude towards the soil should also play an important role, and this work must begin at school. The world community has already come to understand this situation. A project has been developed in the USA, one of the objectives of which is to unite scientists, school teachers and schoolchildren to include soil science in school programs. Unfortunately, in the homeland of soil science they are not yet thinking about this.

But it's never too late to learn. And you and I will learn the basics of this science not at our desks, but right in our own area.