Soils and climate
Vice versa, a changed climate will impact on soils. When rainfall events become more frequent and more intense (“erosive”) during severe storms, soil erosion rates will be increasing, with significant negative implications for food production and water quality. We also know that key soil chemical properties such as soil organic carbon or pH are rather sensitive to climate variables such as rainfall and temperature. In our coastal areas, sea-level rise causes increased saltwater intrusion and groundwater salinization, compromising the availability of fresh water, including that used for drinking and farm and garden irrigation. Also, drought conditions are predicted to increase in larger part of New Zealand, increasing the soil moisture deficit over the summer months.
The good news is that if soils can be part of the solution here. The fact that they play such an important role in climate change also means that we can use wise soil management to alleviate the effects of climate change. Adopting sustainable soil management practices or restoring degraded land where possible will go a long way!
A no-regrets strategy in most cases is to maintain or increase the soil organic carbon content (SOC). This is because past and current land management schemes have tended to exploit SOC stocks. Saving or ‘sequestering’ more carbon into the soil can have multiple benefits, from enhanced soil life, improved soil structure and increased water infiltration, to increasing plant-available water capacity.
