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World farm-gate greenhouse gas emissions by activity. Soil degradation is the decline in soil quality that can be a result of many factors, especially from agriculture. Soils hold the majority of the world's biodiversity, and healthy soils are essential for food production and adequate water supply. [53]
Earthquakes may have contributed to decline of several sites by direct shaking damage or by changes in sea level or in water supply. [28] [29] [30] More generally, recent research pointed to climate change as a key player in the decline and fall of historical societies in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.
The assumption was that the central cause of all famines was a decline in food availability by reason of decline in food production or disruption of food distribution. [1] However this does not explain why only a certain section of the population such as the agricultural laborer was affected by famines while others were insulated from them.
Agriculture contributes greatly to soil erosion and sediment deposition through intensive management or inefficient land cover. [32] It is estimated that agricultural land degradation is leading to an irreversible decline in fertility on about 6 million ha of fertile land each year. [33]
Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity, leads to biodiversity loss, and can reduce food security as well as water security. [3] [1] It was estimated in 2007 that up to 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded, [4] with the United Nations estimating that the global economy could lose $23 trillion by 2050 through ...
This global decline is dominated by negative impacts in already warm countries, since agriculture in cooler countries is expected to benefit from warming. [27] However, this does not include the impact of changes in water availability, which can be far more important than the warming, whether for pasture species like alfalfa and tall fescue ...
Increased erosion in agricultural landscapes from anthropogenic factors can occur with losses of up to 22% of soil carbon in 50 years. [99] Climate change will also cause soils to warm. In turn, this could cause the soil microbe population size to dramatically increase 40–150%. Warmer conditions would favour growth of certain bacteria species ...
This increased level of poverty eventually causes depopulation by decreasing birth rates. If asset prices keep increasing, social unrest would occur, which would likely cause a major war, revolution, or a famine. Societal collapse is an extreme but possible outcome from this process. The theory posits that such a catastrophe would force the ...