ABSTRACT:
The information age of the 1990s is a global consciousness where scientific and technological advances are assumed capable of solving global environmental problems. A significant characteristic of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution problems is the lack of regard for political boundaries and physical barriers between cities, states, nations, and continents. The widespread nature of such environmental problems often results in an analogous diffuse acceptance of responsibility for resolution. Thus, an ability to accurately assess the present and future impact of human activities on the global ecosystem would provide a most powerful basis for environmental stewardship and guiding future human actions. To responsibly respond to impaired ecosystem functioning (i.e., with respect to such issues as climatic change, stratospheric ozone depletion, species diversification, erosion, deforestation, desertification, agricultural sustainability, and non-point source pollution), it is necessary to examine these issues not only from a multidisciplinary systems-based approach, but also with an approach that accounts for spatial and temporal context. The problems and philosophical issues of addressing NPS pollution is the vadose zone within a spatial and temporal context are presented.
Footnotes
Dennis L. Corwin is a research soil scientist at the USDA-ARS, U.S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, Ca; Keith Loague is an associate professor at the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences; and Timothy R. Ellsworth is a associate professor of Soil Physics at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.
- Copyright 1998 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.