soil erosion – Aquarius-Systems

Phosphorus Loss From Farm Soil Can Harm Wetlands and Water Quality

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 22:07:39 +0000

Phosphorus-enriched soil is very much essential for agricultural purposes. But the current alarming fact is, this nutrient is increasingly being lost from soils all around the world. This mineral is one of the vital factors for the world’s food production and there isn’t an unlimited supply of this from the soil.

Phosphorus in the soil flushed out of agricultural soils into wetlands and local bodies because of the erosion. The excess of nutrients harms the aquatic plant and animals.

Soil Erosion and Water Pollution

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 01:45:00 +0000

The relationship between water quality and soil erosion cannot be overemphasized. Soil erosion and residue management, especially surface water runoff, influence water quality. A silt fence, sometimes called a filter fence, is a temporary sediment control barrier used on construction sites to protect water quality in nearby waterways from sediment in stormwater runoff.

The problem with silt fences is that they only filter sand and silt, clay and nutrients flow through the fences. Placing a berm of compost on the low side of silt fences adds the capacity to filter out clays and nutrients. Compost contains both positive and negative charges that attract both positively and negatively charged elements and clays.

Legacy Phosphorus Poses Long-Term Risks to Water Quality

Sun, 02 Apr 2017 20:16:35 +0000

Phosphorus is one of the most important components in the ongoing struggle to balance agricultural prosperity with water quality. When farmers fertilize their fields with this essential nutrient, plants use some, with precipitation carrying excess amounts into nearby bodies of water, fueling algal blooms that can kill fish and and endanger drinking water quality.

But phosphorus that lingers in the soil, sometimes for decades, is troublesome as well.

What scientists call “legacy phosphorus” — or “legacy P,” a common abbreviation — exists in a sort of nutrient limbo.

Phosphorus can easily bind to soil particles, a state in which plants don’t usually access it. The nutrient generally must be in water in order for the plants to use it. Moreover, as farmers spread more fertilizer, new quantities of phosphorus are made available to crops. But as land erodes or heavy rains hit fields, some of that older phosphorus will make its way into streams, rivers, lakes and ultimately groundwater. In coming decades, greater quantities of legacy phosphorus could get flushed into water sources due to climate change, which is projected to increase heavy precipitation events in the Midwest.

Scott Gordon WisContext

March 27, 2017 | 11:50 a.m