The Irrigation Situation

I read the second article that was provided this week and learn all about irrigation salinity. More specifically, the how, why and what is being down about his problem. It occurs because of over watering and irrigation use on farms this allows minerals underground to rise through the pools of water, effectively poisoning the soil. This usually is involved with salt, which is notoriously bad for crops (see Sherman's March to the Sea). People now are starting to be better about managing their land and water use to prevent the loss of usable soil.

As we learned in lass, it takes hundreds of years just to build a layer of soil only a few centimeters deep. Salting the limited Earth we have creates serious problems. Another thing we discussed in class was the growing human population. We actually need MORE food an land, yet we somehow continue to destroy it all. This is problematic when you think about how our population will potentially double in the next 40 years.

A question I have is about the amount of fertile land that is currently sitting on fertile soil. How much usable and rich soil is unusable because skyscrapers now sit on top. I wonder if there is anyway to get people to move off this land and onto the sandy areas that aren't good for growing anything. Then we could all live on a sunny beach like grandma wanted.