Soil’s Sponge-Like Qualities Help Farmers Combat Climate Change

Farming practices that keep soil covered year-round can reduce the damage caused by both floods and droughts, according to a new study released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). 

“Turning Soils Into Sponges: How Farmers Can Fight Floods and Droughts” shows that that widespread adoption of these practices in a state like Iowa could reduce storm runoff by 15 percent and make as much as 11 percent more water available to crops on average through the end of the century, even as weather patterns become more severe.

Source: MaxPixel

“Many people think of soil as ‘just dirt’—but it’s actually an incredible resource that can make communities and farmers less vulnerable to droughts and flooding as weather becomes hotter and rains come in heavier downpours,” said agronomist Andrea Basche, a Kendall fellow at UCS and the report’s author. “When soil is healthy, it can soak up water like a sponge, preventing runoff into nearby communities while also holding onto it for plants to use later when there is less rain. When soil isn’t healthy, it acts more like concrete.”

Basche reviewed more than 150 field experiments from six continents and found that in 70 percent of them specific conservation and agroecology practices—no-till farming, cover crops, perennials, agroforestry, crop rotations and managed grazing—increased soil’s ability to soak up water. Basche then used a hydrology model to see how adoption of these practices across a region would impact drought and flood impacts. The report focused on Iowa, which is representative of Midwestern agriculture and weather patterns, and found that:

• Converting approximately one-third of Iowa’s cropped acres—the state’s least-profitable and most-erodible acres—to perennial crops or to corn or soybeans grown with a winter cover crop would result in significant water savings.
• During the devastating droughts in Iowa in 1988 and 2012—each of which caused more than $30 billion in damages—adoption of these practices would have made as much as 16 percent more water available for use by crops.
• Had these practices been in place during the massive floods of the last three decades runoff would have been reduced by up to one-fifth and flood frequency cut by the same amount.
• Had these practices been in place between 1981 and 2015, spongier soils in Iowa would have retained 400 trillion more gallons of water during that time. This is equal to nine years’ worth of irrigation water withdrawn across the entire United States at current rates.

Read full article: Union of Concerned Scientists

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Taxonomy

• Soil
• Irrigation
• Irrigation and Drainage
• Water Footprint
• Agriculture
• Agricultural
• Consumption
• Soil Management
• Agriculture