Excerpt
Des Moines, Iowa, just seven miles from SWCS headquarters, is a world insurance capital. In insurance parlance, the conservationist might be thought of as a loss prevention expert. He or she advises the land owner on how to keep possession of a most important asset: the top soil. Stopping soil erosion preserves the ability of the land owner to produce food and fiber and prevents losses or harm to innocent surface water users downstream—boaters, fishing enthusiasts, municipal water suppliers, and others.
Soil is in a special class of of assets. It is valuable where it is, but dangerous to the neighbors if it escapes. Kids will recognize that description as the same as dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Adults might put nuclear reactors and levied rivers in the same category.
So for more than 60 years, we have pursued this containment strategy. We use structures such as terraces, lined channels, and detention ponds; altered practices such as contour plowing, strip cropping, cover crops, residue management, and notill farming; and passive, low tech concepts of windbreaks, hedge rows, grassed waterways and buffer strips. Even though several of these examples involve the use of vegetation, the use has a physical purpose …
Footnotes
Executive Vice President, SWCS.
- Copyright 1997 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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