Monitoring Summary 2010 - Soil Quality
Soils are the protective skin of our planet – they store water and nutrients, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, filter and breakdown pollutants and act as a buffer between the atmosphere and aquatic environments.
Key points
- Soil quality monitoring across 16 new sites in Marlborough has highlighted that in general soil quality was acceptable. However there are some issues with soil compaction at some sites which will need monitoring over time.
- 11.56% of the region has bare soil, most of which is due to natural processes i.e. bare rock and scree, streambank deposition and sheetwash.
- Significantly less bare soil was due to land use activities such as tracks, cultivation and grazing pressure.