Soil - Earth's Living Skin

Soils are a vital ingredient for life. We grow our crops in soil, raise our animals on it, and build our houses on it. Soil sustains our native plants, forests and wildlife. It provides habitats for a host of underground creatures, helps purify water and removes pollution and waste from the environment. We depend on soil to produce food, and it also supplies us with raw materials for everything from buildings to medicines, clothing and paper.

Australia has some of the most ancient, least fertile and most saline soils in the world. How do we best look after this unique and precious resource?

Some Soil Facts - What is soil? How is soil formed? How do soils differ?

Australian Soils - What's special about Australian soils?

Living Soil - Does life exist in soil? Why is soil fertility important?

Case study: Saving our Soils - What problems do we have with our soil? How can we solve them?

Did you know? Soils play a vital role in combating global warming by storing carbon below ground, either as roots and decaying matter or as organic carbon in the soil. This helps prevent the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The clearing of forests and other vegetation for crops, grazing and other human activities has resulted in losses of soil carbon worldwide. Soil carbon 'sinks' can potentially be increased through soil conservation and tree planting.

Clearing native vegetation can damage soil.

Soil research in CSIRO Land and Water

• Spatial Analyis research stream
• Environmental Observation and Landscape Science research program
• Remote Sensing research group
• Predication and Reporting Technologies research stream
• Australian Collaborative Land Evaluation Program (ACLEP)
• Australian Soil Reference Information System

Related Links

• Some Soil Facts
• Australian Soils
• Living Soil
• Case study: Saving our Soils
• Soil educational link
• River Murray Drought
• Acid Sulfate Soils publications