SOIL EROSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23143, 15 September 1938, Page 12

SOIL EROSION

The urgency of taking action to meet the menace of soil erosion has been recognised by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Abnormal flooding is one of the chief agencies causing erosion. Though less obvious and less dramatic than the destruction of bridges or the drowning of stock, the loss of soil by flood-scouring is harm of a more permanent nature. Bridges can be rebuilt and stock replaced far more easily than steep country stripped to rock or bare subsoil can be restored to usable condition—if some of it ever can be. The nature of flood erosioij and its possible extent have recently been shown in Hawke's Bay. There it has gone to the extreme, but it should be realised that in many another part of New Zealand the same process is at work, more slowly, "but from its very insidiousness perhaps more dangerously. Steady attrition can do just as much damage in time as the wholesale scouring which the Hawke's Bay floods caused. It should be realised, too, that the ordinary run-off of rain water from high country can bear away the top soil until what remains will produce nothing of any economic value. For all these reasons the problem of erosion should no longer be neglected. The committee appointed to investigate it should be capable of dealing with its many aspects. The question is not a simple one. It requires the application of expert knowledge in a number of fields. This necessity has been recognised by the department in choosing the personnel' of the committee. The members should be given facilities to make a thorough, indeed an exhaustive, inquiry. When this has been done, no time should be lost in applying such remedies as are shown to be needed. The problem is a pressing one, and inaction may bring disaster.;,