Urban Gardens and Soil Compaction: a Land Use Alternative for Runoff Decrease

Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) is the result of a combination of various factors related to both the natural environment and anthropogenic activities. The aim of this study was to examine (i) the state of SOC in topsoil and subsoil of vineyards compared to the nearest forest, (ii) the influence of soil management on SOC, (iii) the variation in SOC content with topographic position, (iv) the intensity of soil erosion in order to estimate the leaching of SOC from upper to lower topographic positions, and (v) the significance of SOC for the reduction of soil’s susceptibility to compaction. The study area was the vineyard region of Niš, which represents a medium-sized vineyard region in Serbia. About 32% of the total land area is affected, to some degree, by soil erosion. However, according to the mean annual soil loss rate, the total area is classified as having tolerable erosion risk. Land use was shown to be an important factor that controls SOC content. The vineyards contained less SOC than forest land. The SOC content was affected by topographic position. The interactive effect of topographic position and land use on SOC was significant. The SOC of forest land was significantly higher at the upper position than at the middle and lower positions. Spatial distribution of organic carbon in vineyards was not influenced by altitude, but occurred as a consequence of different soil management practices. The deep tillage at 60–80 cm, along with application of organic amendments, showed the potential to preserve SOC in the subsoil and prevent carbon loss from the surface layer. Penetrometric resistance values indicated optimum soil compaction in the surface layer of the soil, while low permeability was observed in deeper layers. Increases in SOC content reduce soil compaction and thus the risk of erosion and landslides. Knowledge of soil carbon distribution as a function of topographic position, land use and soil management is important for sustainable production and climate change mitigation.

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Winter pasture and cover crops and their effects on soil and summer grain crops

Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira ◽

10.1590/s0100-204x2011001000032 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 46 (10) ◽

pp. 1357-1363 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Alvadi Antonio Balbinot Junior ◽

Milton da Veiga ◽

Anibal de Moraes ◽

Adelino Pelissari ◽

Álvaro Luiz Mafra ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Common Bean ◽

Cover Crops ◽

Nitrogen Fertilization ◽

Soil Compaction ◽

Surface Soil ◽

Soil Layer ◽

N Fertilization ◽

The North ◽

Oilseed Radish

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of winter land use on the amount of residual straw, the physical soil properties and grain yields of maize, common bean and soybean summer crops cultivated in succession. The experiment was carried out in the North Plateau of Santa Catarina state, Brazil, from May 2006 to April 2010. Five strategies of land use in winter were evaluated: intercropping with black oat + ryegrass + vetch, without grazing and nitrogen (N) fertilization (intercropping cover); the same intercropping, with grazing and 100 kg ha-1 of N per year topdressing (pasture with N); the same intercropping, with grazing and without nitrogen fertilization (pasture without N); oilseed radish, without grazing and nitrogen fertilization (oilseed radish); and natural vegetation, without grazing and nitrogen fertilization (fallow). Intercropping cover produces a greater amount of biomass in the system and, consequently, a greater accumulation of total and particulate organic carbon on the surface soil layer. However, land use in winter does not significantly affect soil physical properties related to soil compaction, nor the grain yield of maize, soybean and common bean cultivated in succession.

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Effects of land use on the solodic soils of the Poplar Box (Eucalyptus populnea) lands.

The Rangeland Journal ◽

10.1071/rj9810005 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 5 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

BR Tunstall ◽

AA Webb

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Soil Compaction ◽

Management Practices ◽

Soil Resource ◽

Infiltration Rates ◽

Run Off ◽

Domestic Livestock ◽

Effects Of Land Use ◽

Soil Changes ◽

Eucalyptus Populnea

Information on soil changes under various forms of land use in poplar box (Eucalyptus populnea) lands on solodic soils is summarized and generalizations on the effects of management practices on the soil resource are made. The implications of the results for land use are considered and problems seen as requiring further research are outlined. Crazing by domestic livestock results in soil compaction which, through decreasing the infiltration rates, causes an increase in the surface run-off of water. These effects are enhanced by the killing of trees, and the associated changes in soil water content profiles are accompanied by changes in the distribution of soluble soil salts. Scalds develop in some areas. Tnese deleterious changes are reversed where there is shrub growth and livestock are excluded. The reasons for the development and persistence of scalds require further elucidation. In particular, the conditions requited for the recruitment of grass and shrub species, and the relative importance of the various pathways for salt movement in these systems, should be defined.

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Influence of land use on the condition of the riparian zone along an urban-rural gradient in the Sabinal River, Mexico

Botanical Sciences ◽

10.17129/botsci.1858 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 96 (2) ◽

pp. 180 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Erika Díaz-Pascacio ◽

Alejandro Ortega-Argueta ◽

María Mercedes Castillo-Uzcanga ◽

Neptalí Ramírez-Marcial

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Species Richness ◽

Species Composition ◽

Soil Compaction ◽

Riparian Zone ◽

Secondary Forest ◽

Woody Species ◽

Riparian Zones ◽

Plant Species Composition ◽

Human Settlements

Background: Riparian vegetation is strongly influenced by the surrounding land use. While it is known that urbanization processes can affect plant species composition and the ecological condition of the riparian zone, the specific responses require a fuller understanding.Hypothesis: The quality of riparian zones is inversely related to the degree of urbanization of adjacent areas, and that land uses that provide forest cover ensure a less degraded condition and greater diversity of species.Study site and year of study: Sabinal River basin, Chiapas, Mexico, 2015.Methods: Measures of the Riparian Quality Index (RQI) and plant species composition were compared among three different land use conditions (secondary forest, grasslands and crops, and human settlements). Results: Riparian zones adjacent to secondary forest showed higher RQI than those next to grasslands and crops and human settlements. Riparian zones within secondary forest also had a higher woody species richness and better substrate condition, whereas reaches adjacent to human settlements appeared paved and eroded, exhibiting soil compaction. Species richness and diversity were positively correlated to the RQI and were greater in riparian zones adjacent to secondary forest than in those next to human settlements.Conclusions: While grazing and cultivation affect the riparian zone, expansion of urban areas has a greater impact by reducing woody species richness and diversity, altering species composition and favoring soil compaction and bank erosion, which results in reduced riparian quality.

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Quantitatively analyze the impact of land use/land cover change on annual runoff decrease

Natural Hazards ◽

10.1007/s11069-014-1237-x ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 74 (2) ◽

pp. 1191-1207 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Jianzhu Li ◽

Senming Tan ◽

Fulong Chen ◽

Ping Feng

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Cover ◽

Land Cover Change ◽

Annual Runoff ◽

Land Use Land Cover ◽

Runoff Decrease ◽

The Impact

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Land-use intensification in New Zealand: effects on soil properties and pasture production

The Journal of Agricultural Science ◽

10.1017/s0021859610000821 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 149 (3) ◽

pp. 337-349 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

D. J. HOULBROOKE ◽

R. J. PATON ◽

R. P. LITTLEJOHN ◽

J. D. MORTON

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

New Zealand ◽

Soil Quality ◽

Soil Compaction ◽

Large Scale ◽

Management Practices ◽

Cattle Grazing ◽

Soil Taxonomy ◽

Pasture Production ◽

Land Use Intensification

SUMMARYLand-use intensification requires more farm inputs to sustain or increase farm product outputs. However, a common concern for land-use intensification is the potential deterioration of soil. The North Otago Rolling Downlands (NORD) region of New Zealand is drought prone, and although traditionally limited to extensive sheep farming, there are large-scale conversions to intensive cattle grazing operations such as dairy farming resulting from an irrigation scheme commissioned in 2006. Pallic soils (Aeric Fragiaqualf in US Soil Taxonomy) such as those in the NORD region are prone to soil compaction because of their ‘high’ structural vulnerability under intensive management. To address these concerns, a field trial was established on a common NORD Pallic soil (Timaru silt loam) to determine how land-use intensification affects indicators of soil quality (macroporosity, bulk density, structural condition score, total and mineralizable carbon and nitrogen and earthworms) and pasture production. The treatments compare irrigated v. dryland pasture and sheep v. cattle grazing on 16 plots. The findings show that soil physical quality responds more quickly to changes in land-use pressure than do biochemical and organic indicators. Both irrigation and cattle grazing, particularly in combination, increased soil compaction; macroporosity on irrigated plots grazed by cattle ranged from 9·1 to 13·3% v/v at a depth of 0–50 mm, compared to dryland plots with sheep grazing (18·9–23·0% v/v). Soil compaction/damage has implications for pasture production, soil hydrology and nutrient movement. Land management practices for intensive cattle grazing of irrigated soil prone to treading damage therefore need to implement high compaction risk strategies to avoid or ameliorate potential changes to soil quality.

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Soil Compaction under Three Different Land Use Systems within the Semi-deciduous Agro-ecological Zone of Ghana

International Journal of Plant & Soil Science ◽

10.9734/ijpss/2016/25495 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Mavis Arthur ◽

Ernest Asamoah

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Soil Compaction ◽

Ecological Zone ◽

Land Use Systems

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Separating the effects of revegetation and sediment-trapping dams construction on runoff decrease in a semi-arid watershed of the Loess Plateau

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21130 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bingjun Lu ◽

Huimin Lei ◽

Dawen Yang ◽

Xudong Fu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Loess Plateau ◽

Hot Spot ◽

Economic Security ◽

The Loess Plateau ◽

Sediment Trapping ◽

Runoff Reduction ◽

Basin Scale ◽

Runoff Decrease

Runoff decrease as was triggered or exacerbated by human activities over the past decades on the Loess Plateau has grown to be a hot spot increasingly drawing nationwide concerns; distinguishing human-induced runoff-altering factors from one another is of great significance to decision-making on maintaining regional water, ecological and economic security. Sediment-trapping dams (STDs) construction and revegetation are the two major soil conservation practices regarded to have also caused runoff reduction, whose hydrologic effects on the basin scale have not been separated quantitatively. Our study, choosing the Huangfuchuan River Basin as the study area and based on analyses of its hydrologic, climatic and underlying condition changes, proposed a physically-based attribution framework which is able to account for the hydrological effects of STDs, revegetation, land use change and climate change simultaneously, and attributed runoff decrease of the basin among factors including climate change, STDs construction, revegetation and land use cover change. The model-based attribution results indicate that STDs construction caused a 45% (48%) runoff reduction from 1976-1988 to 1989-2000 (2001-2014) and revegetation was responsible for a 30% runoff decrease from 1976-1988 to 2001-2014, with daily simulation implying that the hydrologic effect of revegetation to affect flow magnitudes more consistently than that of STDs. Our study demonstrates that STDs construction is the prime contributor to runoff decrease in the study area and suggests that STDs should be taken into account in similar studies on the Loess Plateau in the future.

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