Soil and its Importance for Human Civilizations

摘要

Soils are the foundation of human societies. Without soils, human societies cannot exist. Humans rely on soils primarily for food production, but also for clean and sufficient water supplies. The first advanced human civilizations developed in regionswhere soil and water resources were abundant, allowing people to advance agriculture and to produce surplus food. The availability of surplus food freed up time and other resources for the development of arts, science, and technology. As fertile and abundant soils allowed societies to thrive, societies declined and disappeared when soil resources deteriorated, as history has repetitively witnessed. Fall and rise of past civilization is often tightly connected with soil resources: abundant and rich soils allowed societies to blossom; degraded or destroyed soils caused societies to collapse (Hillel, 1992; Diamond, 2005).