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| This is the color of Oxisol soil with high concentration iron (III), aluminiumoxides and hydroxides |
The Fiji Islands is commonly known as a vacation spot as well a
very tropical island. Aside from the beautiful beach and amazing resorts, Fiji
is divided up into three major classes of landforms: plains; low mountains and
hills and high mountains. Lowland soils are usually below 600m with an average
temperature over 71 degrees Fahrenheit. The soils in this particular region are
formed usually formed on beach sand. Also, in this particular area, the soil can
be very oxisol, which means that the soil contains high concentration of iron
(III), aluminiumoxides and hydroxides. This process is called lateralization
which is a great amount of aluminum and ferric hydroxides which then creates a reddish
or a yellowish color way.
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| A small village in Suva, Fiji that shows the type of poverty they're in. |
Having such oxisol soil obviously contains a lack of
nutrients in this certain region of the island, however in addition to oxisol
soil, erosion of land in Fiji has been a big problem over the years. In fact,
business executive Lautoka and community worker Peter Drysdale says “The rate
of soil erosion in the hills behind western town were the real causes of poverty,
there was a connection between soil erosion, floods, dry season, crop yields
and poverty.” The main island of Fiji is Viti Levu. Viti Levu is actually big
enough to have two different climates on one different side of the island. In
fact, the climate in Viti Levu is so unique its called the “Water Cycle of Fiji.”
The mountains on Viti Levu are located towards the center of the island and
evaporation happens on the West side of the mountain, then transporting to the East side of the island for precipitation. However, with this particular
process after precipitation is processed and run off towards the west side of
the island, everything starts becoming dryer and dryer.
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| This water cycle is a representation of the water cycle at Fiji. The west side of the island is dryed off because of all the precipitation that happened in the east side of the island. |
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