Solutions

Perennial vs. Annual Wheat Crops

The disappearing of the Temperate Grassland needs to be fixed. There is overgrazing and overcropping of the grasses that makes the plants left not have enough grip on the soil, so it just blows away.

Some farmers in the past years have been planting annual plants. These annual plants have shorter roots which makes them easier to blow away because they don't have a grip on the ground.  With the shorter roots the topsoil is  blown away when the farmers plow their land and when the ground is left exposed for long periods of time it starts to erode away with the wind. One way to solve the problem of the new planting of crops is to change the type of crops being planted. Instead of planting annual crops, some farmers are now planting perennial crops. These crops have longer roots that help to prevent erosion, which is the a big problem in the grasslands.

Perennial crops are good for the Temperate Grasslands outside of just for farming techniques. They are also well suited for grazing animals. Because even when the grazing animals eat the top of the perennial plants, the deep roots still stay in the ground.
Climate change's affect on Temperate Grasslands is that just increases the problems that the grasslands already face. The grasslands have been altered by humans and are being altered even more because of climate change. The grasslands are already vulnerable to the effects of climate change because the are relativity flat, however, since they have so many problems already, like soil depletion, the effects of climate change and even more dramatic on the Temperate Grasslands. Therefore this biome needs to be protected and looked after like it never has been before. We need to pay more attention to our Temperate Grasslands in order to try to save them. The issue of climate change is not good for the Temperate Grasslands, however, it does bring more attention to the Temperate Grasslands because they are being affected by it so much. And because people start to pay more attention to the Temperate Grasslands, because of climate change, they also might start to pay attention to the other issues going on in the Temperate Grasslands.

Climate change is not something that we can change just by planting a different plant in the field like we could with soil erosion. In order to solve this much larger problem, we need to have a much larger solution. The solution has to expand across all the biomes in order to save all of them. We have to pay more attention to our ecosystems and the plants and animals in them if we want them to still be here for future generations. Thus, we have to spread the word about the importance of the ecosystems and how much our life will be changed if they were not taken care of. So,. the solution to climate change is not a simple task. It is monumental; you have to spread the word and tell everyone that in order to save our ecosystems like the Temperate Grasslands we need to pay attention to them and take care of them.

Additional Information Gathered From: 

Bagne, K.; Ford, P.; Reeves, M. (November 2012). Grasslands. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Climate Change Resource Center. www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/grasslands/