This book views soil as a fundamental resource that must urgently be protected, preserved and restored, in order to secure food for the ever-increasing human population and to maintain the health and quality of the Earth's ecosystems. It emphasizes the immediate and long-lasting impacts of soil degradation on agricultural productivity (crops, livestock, and fisheries), air and water quality, health of organisms, and the planet's life support-systems. This book highlights the mutual relationships of terrestrial ecosystems with their physical environments, and stresses that when the soil is degraded, a concomitant deterioration takes place in the whole ecosystem. Throughout history, soil degradation has, in fact, played a crucial role in the collapse of many civilizations. This book comprehensively describes soil degradation in terms of: · Causes: deforestation, vegetation over-exploitation, shifting cultivation, overgrazing, unbalanced fertilizer use, over-extraction of ground water, etc. · Processes: soil compaction, surface crusting, soil-fertility depletion, water erosion, wind erosion, salinization, soil pollution, etc. · Conservation and Remediation Measures: soil amendments, decompaction, mulching, cover cropping, crop rotation, green manuring, contour farming, strip cropping, alley cropping, surface roughening, windbreaks, terracing, sloping agricultural land technology (SALT), dune stabilization, etc.