Long-term water balance and sustainable production of Miscanthus energy crops in the Loess Plateau of China

ABSTRACTSoil moisture is a key factor in the ecohydrological cycle in water-limited ecosystems, and it integrates the effects of climate, soil, and vegetation. The water balance and the hydrological cycle are significantly important for vegetation restoration in water-limited regions, and these dynamics are still poorly understood. In this study, the soil moisture and water balance were modelled with the stochastic soil water balance model in the Loess Plateau, China. This model was verified by monitoring soil moisture data of black locust plantations in the Yangjuangou catchment in the Loess Plateau. The influences of a rainfall regime change on soil moisture and water balance were also explored. Three meteorological stations were selected (Yulin, Yan'an, and Luochuan) along the precipitation gradient to detect the effects of rainfall spatial variability on the soil moisture and water balance. The results showed that soil moisture tended to be more frequent at low levels with decreasing precipitation, and the ratio of evapotranspiration under stress in response to rainfall also changed from 74.0% in Yulin to 52.3% in Luochuan. In addition, the effects of a temporal change in rainfall regime on soil moisture and water balance were explored at Yan'an. The soil moisture probability density function moved to high soil moisture in the wet period compared to the dry period of Yan'an, and the evapotranspiration under stress increased from 59.5% to 72% from the wet period to the dry period. The results of this study prove the applicability of the stochastic model in the Loess Plateau and reveal its potential for guiding the vegetation restoration in the next stage.

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ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON SOIL WATER BALANCE IN THE LOESS PLATEAU OF CHINA

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology - Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture II, Volume 2 ◽

10.1007/978-1-4419-0211-5_10 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 871-880 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Zhi Li ◽

Wenzhao Liu ◽

Xunchang Zhang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Loess Plateau ◽

Soil Water Balance ◽

The Loess Plateau ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact

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Identification of the important environmental factors influencing natural vegetation succession following cropland abandonment on the Loess Plateau, China

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.10349 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. e10349

Author(s):

Zhenguo Zhang ◽

Mingming Wang ◽

Jikai Liu ◽

Xinwei Li

Keyword(s):

Loess Plateau ◽

Correspondence Analysis ◽

Classification Tree ◽

Detrended Correspondence Analysis ◽

Vegetation Succession ◽

Natural Vegetation ◽

Vegetation Types ◽

The Loess Plateau ◽

Cropland Abandonment

Identification of typical vegetation succession types and their important influencing factors is an important prerequisite to implement differential vegetation and soil management after land abandonment on the Loess Plateau, China. However, there is no reported study specifically on the identification of vegetation types and their important factors as well as the thresholds of the important factors for classification of the vegetation types, based on the medium- to long-term succession of natural vegetation after cropland abandonment. We collected vegetation and soil data on the natural vegetation with the longest 60-year-old forest communities that developed after cropland abandonment and analyzed the data using two-way indicator species analysis, detrended correspondence analysis, direct canonical correspondence analysis and classification tree model. The vegetation communities were classified into five distinct vegetation types, including Artemisia scoparia, Lespedeza davurica and Stipa bungeana, Artemisia giraldii pamp, Sophora viciifolia, Quercus liaotungensis and Biota orientalis. The years after cropland abandonment and soil C/N were further identified as important factors determining the types of vegetation. Likewise, it was observed that most of the investigated soil nutrient variables and soil texture-related variables improved with the vegetation succession while soil water in the surface layers showed a decreasing trend. These findings may provide an ecological basis for site-specific management of vegetation types after cropland abandonment in the medium-long term on the Loess Plateau. Our results encourage further exploration of vegetation succession and their important factors based on longer periods of vegetation succession after cropland abandonment under more soil and climatic conditions on the mountainous areas as the Loess Plateau.

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