Poster drawing contest on salt-affected soils - Winners announced!
In the framework of World Soil Day (WSD) 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) and the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) launched a Kids2kids poster drawing contest on salt-affected soils with the motto "Halt soil salinization, Boost soil productivity".
Did you know that soils can be salty? Have you ever seen white crusts on soil? Salts are present naturally in soils and water, and they move freely through the soil. Naturally saline soils may support rich ecosystems, but natural processes such as droughts and human activities, especially irrigation, can increase how many salts are in soils, a process that is called salinization. Soil salinization breaks down our soils and reduces their ability to help our food grow. We asked to share your knowledge about soil salinization with other kids and let them know the amazing ecosystem richness of saline soils and the threat that soil salinization poses to our soils and our lives!
IUSS and FAO's GSP received 49 posters for the contest, which was very successful in giving visibility to the importance of the fight against soil salinization and raising awareness on the urgency of protecting healthy soils.
THE WINNERS FOR CATEGORY A ARE... Kanshika and Sashini Manikandan, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates! Congratulations!
THE WINNER FOR CATEGORY B IS... Bhakti Venkatesh Hegde, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates! Congratulations!
Well-wishings to the winners and finalists and a heartfelt thank you to all participants!
See below the five finalists per each category!
Mention of Honor
Mr Shen-Yen Huang is an artist from Taipei who engages children in the creation of the artworks you can see below, in coordination with several teachers. In hope to help the kids to learn more about how a living environment and soil protection are closely related, this year the UN FAO World Soil Day 2021 was taken as a theme course.
FINALISTS - Category A (5-10 years old)
Children from salt-affected areas have used their creativity to illustrate how soil salinization and sodification affect their daily lives and environment!
The social media voting opens today at 10 AM CET and the winners will be announced on the GSP's facebook page on the 5th of December at 6 PM CET. Vote here
THE WINNERS FOR CATEGORY A ARE... Kanshika and Sashini Manikandan, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates! Congratulations!
Halt soil salinization, boost soil productivity
My picture shows how soil gets salinized and the ways to reduce soil salinity to get more yield.
Kshiti Shashikant Patil, India.
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Halt soil salinization, boost soil productivity
We made soil as a character and shown how it will look when healthy and when it is salinized. We showed the causes for the salinization like climate change, deforestation, soil erosion, soil mineral, sea water contact and salty ground water. We have shown the healthy soil is able to drink required amount of water from soil whereas salinized is not able to absorb water.
Kanshika and Sashini Manikandan, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates
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Secondary Salinization: Causes and Impacts
The poster describes the causes of secondary salinization such as poor quality irrigation water, climate change and their impacts on crop growth, SOC status, and soil biodiversity loss.
Chezheyan Rajangam, India
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Soil salinization and our life
The left half is saline soil, accompanied by cracking, dead wood, hunger and poor life. The right half reflects that as long as we care about the soil, we will bring beautiful mountains and rivers, the fragrance of birds and flowers, and plenty of food and clothing.
Yinyao Bao, China Agricultural University Affiliated Elementary School, People's Republic of China
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Beauty or salty?
The natural world with plants and crops is amazingly beautiful, but if the soil was salty, the crops gone, the beauty gone. So please save our beautiful world, save the crops, and protect ourselves!
Simiao Luo, Zhan chunyuan Kindergarten, the People's Republic of China
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FINALISTS - Category B (10-14 years old)
Children from salt-affected areas have used their creativity to illustrate how soil salinization and sodification affect their daily lives and environment!
The social media voting opens today at 10 AM CET and the winners will be announced on the GSP's facebook page on the 5th of December at 6 PM CET. Vote here
THE WINNER FOR CATEGORY B IS... Bhakti Venkatesh Hegde, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates! Congratulations!
Threats to soils
I am a grade 5 student and have been studying about soil biodiversity. It is important for us to understand the reasons affecting the soil quality. We should make a sincere effort to have a check on human activities and maintain the quality of the soil, which is a home for millions of microorganisms and animals both living inside and on the surface of the soil. Through this poster, I have tried to highlight the difference between a good soil and a salty soil, and the effects of salt which can lead to soil degradation.
Saanvi Hemachandra Rao, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates
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Halt salt salinization and boost soil productivity
My art depicts that salinization is a major threat to soil. Water quality and climate change increases the problem. Some of the ways to halt salt salinization and boost are use of biofertilizer, opportunities for salt tolerant crops.
Bhakti Venkatesh Hegde, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates
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‘Let's save our soil from salt'
In my drawing, I have drawn myself holding an umbrella. I can protect soil from salt by this umbrella. And when our soil is healthy, our plants are healthy and we also are healthy. As the umbrella is ours, it’s our duty to hold it strong.
Suraiya Khatun Nupur, Pabna Government Girls' High School, Bangladesh
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Halt soil salinization
My poster contains a lot of colour and shows the two major problems that occur with soil salinisation: food security and farmer income security. The title is Preserve our Soil.
Riti Shah, GEMS Wellington International School, India
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Soil conservation
In this poster I have shown that the all the waste material are stored inside the soil as a fertilizer and everything even a simple himan being is made from soil and after death is buried in the soil. If there is no soil there won't be any food and if there is no food no living thing would be able to survive. So the main idea is that earth will become uninhabited and all living creatures will die.
Aleena Ahmed Faisal Pervaiz, Crescent Model Higher Secondary school, Pakistan
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All entries - CATEGORY A
Happy and Healthy Soil v/s Sad Saline Soil
How salt affected soils cannot grow good crops and have better yeilds/productivity in agriculture. As a solution, growing of salt resistant crops, leaching, sub surace and surface drainage, application of ammendments like gypsum with proper irrigation can have a good crop and boost agricultural productivity. Hence it is happy and healthy soil v/s sad saline soils.
Nibodh Sairam NV, St. Joseph's Central School, Mysuru, India
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Untitled
Deqi Zhang, The Experimental Primary School Affiliated to Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, the People's Republic of China
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'Let me smile, not salty'
This poster is showing helplessness of soil animals and plants in saline soil. Earthworms are dying, plants are dying and some are already dead. Whole earth is crying because of salination of soil.
Reesha Malik, Vidyasagar Shishu Niketan (Primary), India
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The Chinese old peasant on salt-affected soils
Our hometown is on the Loess Plateau, with the substantial improvement of people’s living standards and the significant increase of income, soil conservation seems to have been forgotten by many people. Food production has already fallen behind the population growth, but our soil was riddled with hurt. There were no more children on the salt-affected soils, but only a few old people.
Xinyue(欣玥) Li(李), Lanzhou Qilihe district Jiankang Road Primary School, the People's Republic of China
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Halt soil salinization, boost soil productivity
Suriti Chakrabartim Vidyasagar Shishu Nikatan, Midnapore, India
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World Soil Day. Soil Salinity - Gives Land Invalidity
In this poster we are portraying the affect of soil Salinity on crop production.
Tanisha Mandal, St. Michael's School, India
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Soil Salvation from Salinization
The climate change rises the sea level that causes paddy field contamination with its salty water. Long and unpredictable dry season aggravate the condition by increasing the salt concentration in the soil.
Azzam Ahmad Achsani, An Nahl Islamic Primary School, Indonesia
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Help saline soils to get healthy
Every drop of saline water brings some amount of salt into the soil where it is accumulated day by day and usually can be seen as a white crust consisted of very little crystals of salt. Crop growing on saline soils suffer from bad growing conditions as luck of water and nutrition deficiency and as a result the crop yield on such soils is very low.
Maxim Ciolacu, “Olimp” school, the Republic of Moldova
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Boy on salt-affected soil
When the boy learned that drought was the cause of soil salinization, he wanted toalleviate the drought of salinized soil in his own unique way.
Duoai Xu, The Affiliated Middle School of Xuehui Xu, the People's Republic of China
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Finding new homes
The growth of plants on salt-affected soil was greatly i nhibited, which are wilted. They look forward to escaping from the salt affected soil and going to healthy soil. Soil animals can't stand the living environment of salt affected soil. They have to find new homes.
Huifeng Yan Yan, Jiangxi Agricultural University Kindergarten, the People's Republic of China
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All entries - CATEGORY B
Stop over soil salinization, boost soil productivity
Akshita Iyer, DPS Sharjah, Water Alliance, United Arab Emirates
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Soil Salinization presented by Tulia the Tulip
Guhan Gunasekhar, Narrabri Public School, Australia
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Halting soil salinization starts with planting a tree and a grass
The soil salinization is a terrible thing. Because there are very few plants that can growth in this soil. If it is not treated in time, the world environment will be threatened. However, cedar can grow well in saline-alkali soil and improve the soil. So halting soil salinization starts with planting a cedar.
Shaochen Wang, Lanzhou No.11 Middle School, the People's Republic of China
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Soil salinization
Fatima Saparalieva, Darina Sultanbaeva, Ali Bayzan, Sema Gadjal (group work), Maarrif Educational Complex, Kyrgyzstan
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Soil is a blessing
The worlds biodiversity is rapidly effecting because of land pollution cause by humans . By which the trees are dying and being cut at a rapid rate which causes desertification and soil erosion etc .
Hadia Tariq, Tariq Afzal, The Crescent Model Higher Secondary School, Pakistan
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Salt can mean the end of the Life of the living. All or nothing.
Sofia Lavrenko, Kherson specialized school, Ukraine
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Halt soil salinization boost soil productivity
Salts are less likely to be leached from the soil in low rainfall areas and therefore poor quality irrigation water with high levels of salts will have a greater impact on the soil... It may result in soil dispersion , with consequent soil surface sealing , crusting erosion, poor water water entry and poor seedbeds
Khizra Naveed, Crescent Model higher secondary school, Pakistan
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