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Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment.
Soil is a major component of the Earth's ecosystem.The world's ecosystems are impacted in far-reaching ways by the processes carried out in the soil, with effects ranging from ozone depletion and global warming to rainforest destruction and water pollution.
Within the sciences, the word "contamination" can take on a variety of subtle differences in meaning, whether the contaminant is a solid or a liquid, [3] as well as the variance of environment the contaminant is found to be in. [2] A contaminant may even be more abstract, as in the case of an unwanted energy source that may interfere with a process. [2]
Photo showing piece of agricultural land irrigated and ploughed for paddy cultivation Share of land area used for agriculture, OWID. Agricultural land is typically land devoted to agriculture, [1] the systematic and controlled use of other forms of life—particularly the rearing of livestock and production of crops—to produce food for humans.
Alkali, or alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 19 February 2025. Water located beneath the ground surface An illustration showing groundwater in aquifers (in blue) (1, 5 and 6) below the water table (4), and three different wells (7, 8 and 9) dug to reach it. Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in ...
Bioavailable phosphorus (available to soil life) is the element in soil that is most often lacking. Nitrogen and potassium are also needed in substantial amounts. For this reason these three elements are always identified on a commercial fertilizer analysis.
Soil texture is a classification instrument used both in the field and laboratory to determine soil classes based on their physical texture. Soil texture can be determined using qualitative methods such as texture by feel, and quantitative methods such as the hydrometer method based on Stokes' law.