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Ecosystem services or eco-services are defined as the goods and services provided by ecosystems to humans. [3] Per the 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), ecosystem services are "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems". The MA also delineated the four categories of ecosystem services into provisioning, regulating, supporting, and ...
Soil degradation means that soil quality has diminished, which causes ecosystem functions to decline. [1] One third of the globe's land has degraded soil; [1] especially the tropics and subtropics with around 500 million hectares. [1] Soil degradation occurs due to physical, chemical, and biological forces. [5] These forces can be natural and ...
[34] [35] There is growing evidence that tillage erosion is a major soil erosion process in agricultural lands, surpassing water and wind erosion in many fields all around the world, especially on sloping and hilly lands [36] [37] [38] A signature spatial pattern of soil erosion shown in many water erosion handbooks and pamphlets, the eroded ...
Ecological restoration, or ecosystem restoration, is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, destroyed [1] or transformed. [2] It is distinct from conservation in that it attempts to retroactively repair already damaged ecosystems rather than take preventative measures.
Soil quality refers to the condition of soil based on its capacity to perform ecosystem services that meet the needs of human and non-human life. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Moisture is a significant limiting factor in terrestrial ecosystems and majorly in the soil. [3] Soil organisms are constantly confronted with the problem of dehydration. [4] Soil microbial communities experience shifts in the diversity and composition during dehydration and rehydration cycles. [5]
Soil erosion is the main factor for soil degradation and is due to several mechanisms: water erosion, wind erosion, chemical degradation and physical degradation. Erosion can be influenced by human activity. For example, roads which increase impermeable surfaces lead to streaming and ground loss.
As per the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, land degradation is in defined as "the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity of drylands". [6] A similar definition states that land degradation is the "degradation, impoverishment and long-term loss of ecosystem services".