Land is the accumulation of natural bodies that are free to occupy most of the earth’s surface. Soils are capable of growing various vegetation and have properties as a result of climate change and living bodies acting on the parent material in certain circumstances over a period of time. The function of soil is very vital on earth that is:
– used for residence and place of human activities.
– as a place to grow vegetation that is beneficial to humans.
– contains minerals or minerals that are useful to humans.
The land must be preserved by humans because without the soil, humans will be difficult to live. one way to guard it is to erosion control as well as conservation methods. Soil conservation methods such as by using two approaches are vegetative methods and mechanical methods.
- The vegetative method
This method is an effort to conserve soil by planting vegetation on the ground with certain techniques. This method is effective in erosion control, including:
- Strip Cropping, is planting perpendicular to the flow of water or wind direction.
- Contour Strip Cropping, is a parallel plowing with contour lines to reduce and retain water flow velocity.
- Bufering, is a land cover that has a steep slope with hard plants to inhibit the rate of water.
- Windbreaks, are plantings with vegetation permanently to protect the soil from exposure to water.
- Crop Rotation, is a method of planting more than one type of vegetation in one year to prevent soil damage.
- Mechanical method
This method is a soil conservation effort with soil processing techniques that are expected to reduce the rate of water erosion. Common ways to do this method include:
- Contour tillage, is a parcel processing parallel to the contour lines and forming small igirs that slow the flow of water and increase water infiltration.
- Terraces, is a wedge of terraces on slopes to reduce the angle of land so that erosion can be minimized. This method is usually done by farmers in Indonesia.
- Guludan, is the making of mounds of soil (mount) so that water can flow in the direction of contour line.
- Cekdam, an activity to stem the flow of water through the trenches so that eroded material can be retained and deposited.