首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Environmental Science According to the professor, what did the Soil Erosion Act do to improve soil conservation? Choose 2 answ
Environmental Science According to the professor, what did the Soil Erosion Act do to improve soil conservation? Choose 2 answ
admin
2014-09-29
33
问题
Environmental Science
According to the professor, what did the Soil Erosion Act do to improve soil conservation? Choose 2 answers.
Environmental Science
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.
Professor
OK, now let’s talk about another environmental concern—soil erosion. It’s a major problem, all around the world. Sometimes erosion damages soil so severely that the land can no longer be cultivated and it’s just abandoned. That happened in a big way right here in the United States. Some of you have probably read the novel The Grapes of Wrath. And maybe you remember that the story took place in the 1930s, during the time of what was called the Dust Bowl.
Dust Bowl is a term we use to describe an ecological and human disaster that took place in the southern Great Plains region. For nearly eight years, dust and sand blew across the area and covered everything. It was so bad it even made breathing and eating difficult. . . and farmers could only look on helplessly as their crops were destroyed and the land .. . and their lives ... ruined.
Now, there’d always been droughts and strong winds in that region. But that was OK because the native grasses had deep roots in the ground that were able to hold the soil in place. So the wind wasn’t able to, you know, erode the soil too badly. This changed, though, between 1900 and 1930. Agriculture was expanding rapidly then, and lots of farmers in the southern Great Plains wanted to grow wheat and other crops they could sell for cash—uh, crops that would be profitable. So they ripped up much of the grassland to plant these crops like wheat, which don’t hold the soil down nearly as well. At the same time, livestock—uh, cattle, too many of them—were feeding on grasses in the area and damaging a lot of the grassland. So these animals caused even more erosion of the soil.
It didn’t help that many of the actual owners of the land were not living anywhere near the area—a lot of the landowners lived way back east, and rented out the land to local people who lived on the land and worked on it, but, um, didn’t have much reason to take really good care of it. I mean, it wasn’t their land, right? The tenant farmers weren’t really interested in conserving someone else’s soil—not for the long term, anyway.
Also, some thought the land couldn’t really be damaged—you know, that the soil was so rich and deep that... it didn’t matter if the topsoil, the soil on the surface, blew away. They thought they could just plow up more. But they were wrong. Good top-soil takes a long time to form—it can literally take thousands of years to create good topsoil that will grow vegetation—and a very short time to ruin it. So after only a few years of excessive plowing, the land pretty much couldn’t be farmed anymore. And people moved on to other places and let the old areas just sit there. And when they didn’t plant anything on that land, that made it vulnerable to even more erosion. So it was kind of a vicious cycle, you could say.
Another problem, ironically, was that advances in technology were actually destroying the land, instead of improving it. A lot of farmers were using huge new tractors that dug deep into the ground and tore up a lot of the soil.
And then, of course, there was the weather. You know, when people look back on the Dust Bowl era, they tend to blame the drought—the lack of rain between 1934 and 1937. We can’t ignore the drought—I mean, it was the worst on record at the time and did help bring on this disaster. But—without the soil destruction—the drought alone wouldn’t have resulted in the devastation we call the Dust Bowl. It was poor farming techniques that made that happen.
Since then, though, we’ve paid more attention to trying to prevent a future Dust Bowl. One thing Congress did was enact a massive government effort to improve soil conservation, called the Soil Erosion Act. Under this law, large stretches of land in the southern Great Plains were identified as being at risk for erosion and were taken out of production and turned into permanent grassland. What that did—by protecting the land from excessive farming—was to stabilize the soil. Also, the Soil Erosion Act helped educate farmers to practice better soil conservation techniques, like reducing how often they plowed and using better equipment that would, you know, minimize damage to the soil structure.
选项
A、It provided special equipment for farmers.
B、It encouraged farmers to use better farming techniques.
C、It turned damaged farmland into permanent grassland.
D、It increased the variety of crops grown on each farm.
答案
B, C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/KTfO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completethenotesbelow.WriteONEWORDONLYforeachanswer.BusinessCulturesPowercultureCharacteristi
Completethenotesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTWOWORDSforeachanswer.NecessaryimprovementstotheexistingSelf-
JacksaysthatinLondonthesedays,manypeople
Labelthemapbelow.WritethecorrectletterA-lnexttoQuestions18-20.SchoolofNavigation______...
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhatTWOthingsdoesJoanneagreetodiscusswithhertutor?AThebestwaystocollaboratewithother
Completetheformbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.BOOKINGINFORMATIONRoomtype【L4】_____
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.Dogsarechosenaccordingto
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhichTWObenefitsofthisactivitytothestudentsarementionedbytheprofessor?ATheybecomemore
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.Ifyouneedtofindinformationonacertainbook
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteONLYONEWORDforeachanswer.ManufacturingintheEnglishMidlandsPo
随机试题
简述咯血病人发生窒息时的临床表现及护理要点。
以下哪种原因引起的缺氧往往无绀
A.病因不明,可能为自身免疫性疾病,病变进展可致弥漫性肺间质纤维化B.纤维素性炎C.慢性非特异性炎D.化脓性炎E.坏死性肺炎病毒性肺炎
企业为了鼓励顾客及早付清货款、大量购买、淡季购买,可以酌情降低其基本价格,这种价格调整叫做()。
(2019年)下列各项中,不属于企业会计基本假设的是()。
下列不属于稿酬所得的项目有()。
“准时化”的本质在于创造m能够灵活地适应市场需求变化的(),以保证企业整体性利润的不断提高。
Allowthatemotiontoconsumeyou.Allowyourselfoneminutetotrulyfeelthatemotion.Don’tcheatyourselfhere.Taketheent
下列关于我国传统节日的描述,与古代的说法或传说不相符的是()。
A、Politicalwill.B、Demographics.C、Socialsecurity.D、Medicare.A细节辨认题。短文中提到Therealproblemwithagingispolitics,notdemogr
最新回复
(
0
)