ABSTRACT
Over the past few decades, human activities have reached such intensity that they represent the most significant factor modifying our planet. Among human activities, the processes related to urbanization most certainly play a major role. At the global level, especially with regard to developing countries, demographic pressures and the migration of rural populations towards urban centres are the main drivers of urban expansion. The occupation and destruction of soil caused by urban expansion should be considered an irreversible event in the human time scale. At a global scale, agricultural soils, and in particular fertile and resilient soils, are already limited resources, destined to become even more limited in the future. In other words, one can consider that the effect of urban expansion occurring in China, Europe, and North America, is directly responsible for the deforestation of at least part of the Cerrado or the Amazon basin and for the loss of natural grasslands in Argentina.
