SOIL EROSION SURVEY

Grey River Argus, 7 October 1941, Page 2

SOIL EROSION SURVEY

CHRISTCHURCH. October 6. Mr Sullivan. Minister of Scientific and Industrial Research, to-day mane reference to the extensive soil surveysurvey carried out by the soil survey division of his department during the past six months. The survey covers an area of eight and a-half million acres of high runhold country extending from Queenstown in the south to the head of the Awatere River, Marlborough, in the north. The incidence and severity of accelerated soil erosion in this large area of country has been carefully surveyed. The survey has shown that of the total area covered, soil is being lost by accelerated erosion on four million six hundred thousand acres. Included in the re mainder is two million one hundred thousand acres of shingle slides ni vere elevated country, which have probably always existed. This leaves only one million eight hundred thousand acres which are free from erosion. “Results obtained from the survey,” said the Minister, “and from other similar surveys, will be of the greatest value in the study of the soil erosion problem in New Zealand, and in framing measures to prevent and, control as far as possible accelerated soil erosion which is already making

verv serious inroads on the Dominion’s soil resources, that are its greatest national assets.”