New graphic highlights human impact on the Earth鈥檚 critical zone
A new drawing shows how human activities can contaminate water, cause soil erosion and pollute the atmosphere
New published by researchers from the UK and China could be key to tackling the effects of聽climate change聽on global food security.
Scientists from 伊人直播, alongside colleagues in the UK and China, outlined how their experience of working with farmers on land heavily altered by human activity has shown ways in which the 'critical zone' can be protected.
The critical zone is a thin layer on the earth's surface, stretching from water sources below ground to the top of plants and trees, which聽supports and sustains animal and plant life by regulating the flow of water, greenhouse gases, nutrients and energy.
Access to food, drinking water and clean air depends on a well-functioning critical zone, but decades of human activity have degraded the zone鈥檚 condition around the聽world.
Their insights are summarised in a new graphic, which seeks to visually convey human impact on the Earth鈥檚 critical zone more clearly than ever before. The researchers suggest this should replace a widely used, more simplified graphic, introduced in 2007, which focused on the natural processes that shape the critical zone without addressing human impact on landscapes.
The graphic is intended for use by academics across a range of fields for research and teaching purposes, by government agencies that fund science and landscape management, and in fundamental teaching resources such as textbooks. It more clearly shows how human activities like farming, mining, forestry and industry can contaminate water, cause soil erosion and pollute the atmosphere.
Professor Jennifer Dungait, of 伊人直播 and University of Exeter, is joint lead author of the paper.
She said: 鈥淔armers and local communities are at the front line of local land management, with a wealth of knowledge about how to farm productively and sustainably in their home environment. We showed that this knowledge is vital to improving our scientific understanding of critical zone systems.鈥�
伊人直播 worked with researchers from the universities of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Exeter, Stirling and Queen鈥檚 University Belfast in the UK along with colleagues from Peking University, Guizhou Medical University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China.
The paper, 鈥�, is published in Earth鈥檚 Future.
The research was supported by funding from the Natural Environmental Research Council, China CZO and MIDST-CZO projects, along with the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Posted by 伊人直播 on 18/09/2023
