Soil
The health of everyone and everything around us depends on the quality of our soils. By protecting and nourishing them, we are looking after ourselves, our diets, rivers, creeks and the Great Barrier Reef.
The future of our soils depends on us
By world standards, Australian soils are quite old and fragile. Because they are older, they are generally easy to wash or blow away, do not readily hold onto water and nutrients, and need more rest and care when they are in poor condition. Anything that damages or destroys soil biology (life), structure, or the soil’s natural protective cover of plants and plant debris, makes them very susceptible to erosion and further decline.
In the central Queensland area, there are many threats to soil health and these are caused by a combination of how we use and manage our landscapes today, what has happened in the past, and what is happening right around the world.
Below provides a snapshot of the most common threats to soil health across our region:
- Land clearing to accommodate agriculture, urban areas, industry and roads
- Changes in weather patterns including increasing temperatures, dry periods and extreme rain events
- Changes in weather patterns including increases in dry periods and extreme rain events
- Compacting soils with heavy machinery, repeated vehicle, human or animal traffic
- Adding or removing too many nutrients, or introducing toxins (including human and animal poo!)
- Removing or transporting soils, or replacing them with other materials
- Changes in the way water moves across and through the landscape (which is influenced by all of the above!)
DID YOU KNOW? As the world’s 6th largest country, Australia has a size of over 7.7 million square kilometres. Over half is dedicated to agriculture which employs over 300,000 people.
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Our soils produce approximately 85% of our nation’s daily food supply, as well as considerable exports (worth $49.2 billion in 2018-19).
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Discover the biggest threats to our natural assets
CQ soils need urgent care and attention
The Fitzroy Basin (which covers most of central Queensland) loses an estimated 4.1million tonnes of top soil and sub-soil each year through wind and water erosion… that’s enough soil to grow enough vegetables to feed 110,215 families every year.
As we get more hot days, higher temperatures, longer dry spells, and bigger but less frequent rain events we are likely to lose even more soil each year. Combine this with increasing pressures to home more people and produce more food from our region, it means the race is on to save the soil we have left and ensure it stays healthy.
DID YOU KNOW? The soil we lose each year through rain and wind events mostly ends up in our waterways and coastal waters where it damages life under water. Next to rising temperatures and sea levels, this sediment is the biggest threat to our part of the Great Barrier Reef!
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In 2020, we asked our community how they thought the health of soils in their local government area were trending based on the preceding five years. The majority of respondents considered them stable to declining.
Urgent action is needed! Trends indicate things are in a bad way. We need to act now!
Asset status is a ready estimator based on:
- Global, Australian and Queensland reports
- The likely impact on our businesses, communities, economy and future if we change nothing in the next five years
- Results of the 2020 regional natural assets community survey
Our region is not at a point where available data can be collated and analysed using a scientifically validated model to produce an accurate report on the status of our region’s six region’s natural assets and two key drivers.