purpose of soil and water conservation on a first grade level?

Answer 1

We are stewards of our resouces and need to manage them properly.

Answer 2

The upper levels of soil (topsoil) is where the nutrients are found. Soil conservation helps to keep the soil in place. This can be done by using no-till or low-till methods of farming. Also, planting a cover crop in the off season can help with runoff caused by rain.

The purpose of Water Conservation is to make sure we dont use all the water in a stream before it gets to the end users, and also to make sure aquafers do not get used up (using up aquafers is a controversial topic).

Not a first grade level, but I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Something like...good, clean soil and water make healthy plants, which feed wild animals. Water is also important to keep clean for the humans who drink it.

Answer 4

what do you mean by a first grade level??

the purpose is to end up with sustainable situations ,which means that the location im proves with time ,getting better all the time and keeping pace with the devellopment of the ocupants wether it be human ,flora or fauna,
aiming for autosuficiency.

SOIL MANEGEMENT
the way to manage the soil is by planting and treating it correctly with out chemicals and planting a diversity of plants .

DIVERSITY
to plant one specie means that too many plants require the same chemicals and also secrete the same chemicals and so polute the soil.

And one prevents this by diversification.their are specific plants that produce nitrogen like an Acacia tree or the marijunana fiber plant which is not the illigal drug version
but there are many others.

only use manures and animal urine to fertilise,one can plant plants for mulch on the edges of vegetable plots to be chopped down for green mulch
many weeds have natural properties that are good for insect repellents

ORGANIC pest control

like the silky and bantum chickens which dont rake the ground but only run and eat 70% of all walking and jumping insects and they also leave quit a lot of manure behind ,if you have enough of them

guiny fowel and partridge will do almost the same job
snakes kill rats.iguanas eat a variety of pests

NO TILL FARMING
the top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.
Conventional plowing breaks open the soil and throws every thing up to dry in the sun, killing all this.

a new and very old concept is -no till farming- which plants in a mulch cover.
MULCH
Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

the humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.

the mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.

soil management should be a component of a larger concept
which includes ,waterharvesting (to zero run off)and form
as well as pest control and diversity of plants

WATER
there is in reality very little water in the world that is directly usefull
93 % of all the planets water is salt ,of the remaning7 %
75% was locked in ice ,in the poles and on the mountains
and a lot of this is now melting and running into the sea
becoming salt water
o.008%is on the land and is good water in rivers ,lakes and in aquifiers ,deep carbon ones and others near the surface
agriculture is overpumping these.and many of the rivers and lakes are becoming contaminated,
what we need to concern out selves with is the production of water ,and then the harvesting or storage of the water that circulates the system ,with rainfall and condensation
the reasons we run out of water is because the world does not pay near enough attention to these concepts
and the future will be wars over water
some are already happening

WATER PRODUCTION
the forests make most of the water that we can drink or use for plant growth(sweet water)
some is condensed from the sea but that reaches only the coastel aereas .

the water for rivers ,comes from the forests ,from the rainfall (which comes from the trees ),and the exess ground water(produced by precipitation) which the trees do not need , which tops up subteranean water deposits and feeds underground waterflows and so keep the rivers running all year round.

If we kill all the trees,we kill the rivers .we kill the rain.


the natural way of nature is for the winds to for blow clouds to places with less water ,what obstruct the clouds from getting to deserts ,tends to be mountains that are in the way,

but generally speaking ,the normal weather patterns spread rain evenly over the planet to balance out the temperatures and humidity.as do the trees which absorb the heat in the day and heat up the place in the night ,so they keep the temperature confortable to live in( trees are containers of water ,99 molecules out of a 100 are water,and forests are often called standing lakes.

As far as catching rain is concerned ,we do this all the time ,and have done so already since Babylonian times,and is a part of the more advanced Agriculture,that existed with the Egyptians,Central ,and south American indigenous peoples,and many others ,today we call this water harvesting.

WATERHARVESTING
In Permaculture the rule is to harvest water to the point of Zero runoff.
this means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

One should always shape the land inicially and make it bowel shaped (if small)terassed if on a slope with an edge around it so that it becomes receptive as aposed to repellent of the water that falls on it and to prevent erosion.

if on the flats it should be self draining.but with cannals also bringing water flows into the land from higher up.

I have connected cannals to road gutters to bring more water in.
by building dams,ponds or swales, with interconecting ditches,
if there are enough of these ;the places ,where before the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,(in a matter of hours or days),It now runs into absorbant dams or swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subteranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.

Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.
And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbant one and turning the area in to a sponge.

in Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence,One can find many remnants of Waterharvesting,such as aquaducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

in Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.

to find out more about Water harvesting I recomend:
the designers manual by Bil Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
and is the best all round book you can get.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])