LAND POLLUTION

Land pollution is the degradation of the Earth's land surface through misuse of the soil by poor agricultural practices, mineral exploitation, industrial waste dumping, and indiscriminate disposal of urban wastes.
Soil MisuseSoil erosion--a result of poor agricultural practices--removes rich humus topsoil developed over many years through vegetative decay and microbial degradation and thus strips the land of valuable nutrients for crop growth. Strip mining for minerals and coal lays waste thousands of acres of land each year, denuding the Earth and subjecting the mined area to widespread erosion problems. The increases in urbanization due to population pressure presents additional soil-erosion problems; sediment loads in nearby streams may increase as much as 500 to 1,000 times over that recorded in nearby undeveloped stretches of stream. Soil erosion not only despoils the Earth for farming and other uses, but also increases the suspended-solids load of the waterway. This increase interferes with the ecological habitat and poses silting problems in navigation channels, inhibiting the commercial use of these waters.