剑桥雅思13Test4阅读passage2真题翻译(1)

剑桥雅思13Test4阅读passage2真题翻译(1) 关于这个问题下面小编就来为各个考生解答下。

剑桥雅思13Test4阅读passage2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14^26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

SAVING THE SOIL

拯救我们的土壤

More than a third of the Earth's top layer is at risk. Is there hope for our planet’s most precious resource?

超过三分之一地表土坡正处于危险之中。我们星球最宝贵的资源是否还有希望恢复?

A More than a third of the world’s soil is endangered, according to a recent UN report. If we don’t slow the decline, all farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Since soil grows 95% of our food, and sustains human life in other more surprising ways, that is a huge problem.

A根据最近的联合国报告显示,世界上超过三分之一的土壤面临威胁。如果我们不减缓这种衰退的趋势,60年后所有可耕种的土壤都会消失。因为土壤中生长出了人类95%的粮食,并且还通过其他种种令人意想不到的方式维持着人类的生活,因此这的确是一个严峻的问题。

B Peter Groffman, from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, points out that soil scientists have been warning about the degradation of the world's soil for decades. At the same time, our understanding of its importance to humans has grown. A single gram of healthy soil might contain 100 million bacteria, as well as other microorganisms such as viruses and fungi, living amid decomposing plants and various minerals.

That means soils do not just grow our food, but are the source of nearly all our existing antibiotics, and could be our best hope in the fight against antibioticresistant bacteria. Soil is also an ally against climate change: as microorganisms within soil digest dead animals and plants, they lock in their carbon content, holding three times the amount of carbon as does the entire atmosphere. Soils also store water, preventing flood damage: in the UK, damage to buildings, roads and bridges from floods caused by soil degradation costs ￡233 million every year.

B来自纽约卡里生态系统研究所的 Peter groffman指出,数十年来,土壤科学家一直在警告人们土壤退化的问题。与此同时,我们也越来越认识到土壤的重要性。每克健康的土壤除了含有一些微生物如病毒和真菌外,还可能含有1亿个细菌,它们以分解植物和各种矿物质为生。

这意味着土壤不仅可以长出我们的粮食,而且是我们几乎全部抗生素的来源,还可能寄托着我们战胜耐抗生素细菌的希望。土壤也可以帮助我们抵御气候变化:随着土壤中的徽生物分解死亡的动植物,它们会固定住其中的碳性物质,其含量是大气层中碳含量的3倍。土壤也可以保持水分,抵御洪水侵袭:在英国,每年因为土壤退化导致的洪水泛滥会淹没房屋、街道和桥梁,损失高达2.33亿英镑。

C If the soil loses its ability to perform these functions, the human race could be in big trouble. The danger is not that the soil will disappear completely, but that the microorganisms that give it its special properties will be lost. And once this has happened, it may take the soil thousands of years to recover.

Agriculture is by far the biggest problem. In the wild, when plants grow they remove nutrients from the soil, but then when the plants die and decay these nutrients are returned directly to the soil. Humans tend not to return unused parts of harvested crops directly to the soil to enrich it, meaning that the soil gradually becomes less fertile. In the past we developed strategies to get around the problem, such as regularly varying the types of crops grown, or leaving fields uncultivated for a season.

C假如土壤失去了这些作用,就会对人类的生存造成巨大的威胁。这个危险并非指土壤的完全消失,而是土壤中的微生物会丧失这些特殊的作用。土壤一旦被破坏可能需要数千年的时间来恢复。

到目前为止,农业生产是的致因。在野外,植物生长时从土壤中获取养分,当植物枯死腐化以后,其中的养分又回到了土壤中。人类通常不会把作物的无用部分返还到土壤中增肥,这就意味着土壤会逐渐失去肥力。过去,我们会米取一些方法绕过这个问题,比如通过定期种植不同的农作物,或者采取休耕的方式。

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