Question Statement:
Read the passage:
'Soil conservation is not merely an engineering intervention involving terraces and check dams; it is fundamentally an ecological safeguard. When topsoil is lost, the microbial biome and organic carbon reserves that took millennia to accumulate are irrevocably depleted, diminishing both primary productivity and climate resilience.'
Which of the following inferences is most directly supported by the passage?
Options:
- (A) Mechanical soil conservation structures alone are insufficient to compensate for lost ecological biome
- (B) Terraces and check dams accelerate the depletion of microbial diversity
- (C) Loss of topsoil can be completely recovered within a crop growing season
- (D) Climate change is independent of soil organic carbon reserves