Effect of secondary succession in abandoned fields on some properties of acidic sandy soils

Author(s):  
Peter Surda ◽  
Lubomir Lichner ◽  
Viliam Nagy

<p>Abandonment of agricultural lands in recent decades is occurring mainly in Europe, North America and Oceania, and changing the fate of landscapes as the ecosystem recovers during fallow stage. The objective of this study was to find the impact of secondary succession in abandoned fields on some parameters of acidic sandy soils in the Borská nížina lowland (southwestern Slovakia). We investigated soil chemical (pH and soil organic carbon content), hydrophysical (water sorptivity, and hydraulic conductivity), and water repellency (water drop penetration time, water repellency cessation time, repellency index, and modified repellency index) parameters, as well as the ethanol sorptivity of the studied soils. Both the hydrophysical and chemical parameters decreased significantly during abandonment of the three investigated agricultural fields. On the other hand, the water repellency parameters increased significantly, but the ethanol sorptivity did not change during abandonment. As the ethanol sorptivity depends mainly on soil pore size, the last finding could mean that the pore size of acidic sandy soils did not change during succession.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
Ľubomír Lichner ◽  
Massimo Iovino ◽  
Peter Šurda ◽  
Viliam Nagy ◽  
Anton Zvala ◽  
...  

AbstractAbandonment of agricultural lands in recent decades is occurring mainly in Europe, North America and Oceania, and changing the fate of landscapes as the ecosystem recovers during fallow stage. The objective of this study was to find the impact of secondary succession in abandoned fields on some parameters of acidic sandy soils in the Borská nížina lowland (southwestern Slovakia). We investigated soil chemical (pH and soil organic carbon content), hydrophysical (water sorptivity, and hydraulic conductivity), and water repellency (water drop penetration time, water repellency cessation time, repellency index, and modified repellency index) parameters, as well as the ethanol sorptivity of the studied soils. Both the hydrophysical and chemical parameters decreased significantly during abandonment of the three investigated agricultural fields. On the other hand, the water repellency parameters increased significantly, but the ethanol sorptivity did not change during abandonment. As the ethanol sorptivity depends mainly on soil pore size, the last finding could mean that the pore size of acidic sandy soils did not change during succession.


Biologia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viliam Novák ◽  
Ľubomír Lichner ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
Karol Kňava

AbstractThe impact of heating on the peristence of water repellency, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and water retention characteristics was examined on soils from both forest and meadow sites in southwest Slovakia shortly after a wet spell. The top 5 cm of meadow soils had an initial water drop penetration time WDPT at 20°C of 457 s, whereas WDPT in the pine forest was 315 s for the top 5 cm and 982 s if only the top 1 cm was measured. Heating soils at selected temperatures of 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300°C caused a marked drop in water drop penetration time WDPT from the initial value at 20°C. However, samples collected in different years and following an imposed cycle of wetting and drying showed much different trends, with WDPT sometimes initially increasing with temperature, followed by a drop after 200–300°C. The impact of heating temperature on the saturated hydraulic conductivity of soil was small. It was found for both the drying and wetting branches of soil water retention curves that an increase in soil water repellency resulted in a drop in soil water content at the same matric potential. The persistence of soil water repellency was strongly influenced by both the sampling site and time of sampling, as it was characterized by the results of WDPT tests.


Soil Research ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 1109 ◽  
Author(s):  
RJ Harper ◽  
RJ Gilkes

The incidence and severity of water repellency was related to five soil class (FC I-V), based on the field texture and dry consistence of the soil surface horizons, derived from a soil survey near Jerramungup, Western Australia. Water repellency was most severe on the FC I soils (median clay content 1.5%), with 66% of samples having water repellency based on the water drop penetration time (WDPT) test >10 s. Corresponding values for the FC II and III soils (2.5%, 4.0% clay) were 37% and 20%. Water repellency did not occur on the most clayey FC IV (8.1% clay) and FC V (22.1% clay) soils. Following stratification of Ap horizon soils by 1% increments of clay content, highly significant linear relationships occurred between log [water drop penetration time (WDPT)] and log [organic carbon (OC)] for the 1-2, 2-3 and 3-4% clay classes, these respectively explaining 50, 35 and 37% of the variation in water repellency. The role of organic carbon in promoting water repellency decreases markedly with increasing clay content, with WDPT being proportional to OC4.5, OC3.9 and OC3.0 for each of these clay classes. A multivariate relationship using measures of amorphous iron, clay and organic matter explained 63% of the variation in water repellency, and this multivariate dependency provides an explanation of the poor bivariate relationships between either clay or organic carbon content and water repellency reported in previous studies. There is a strong geomorphic control of the clay content in the soil surface horizons. Given the effect that clay content has on water repellency, the susceptibility of soils to water repellency can be mapped across farms, with the actual expression of water repellency depending on soil organic matter content, and hence land use. Such discrimination will allow the prediction of water erosion hazard and identify soils requiring ameliorative treatments.


Soil Research ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. H. Doerr ◽  
C. T. Llewellyn ◽  
P. Douglas ◽  
C. P. Morley ◽  
K. A. Mainwaring ◽  
...  

After an initial evaluation of several solvents, the efficiency of Soxhlet extractions with isopropanol/ammonia (s.g. 0.88) (70 : 30 v : v; 24 h) in extracting compounds associated with water repellency in sandy soils was examined using a range of repellent and wettable control soils (n = 15 and 4) from Australia, Greece, Portugal, The Netherlands, and the UK. Extraction efficiency and the role of the extracts in causing soil water repellency was examined by determining extract mass, sample organic carbon content and water repellency (after drying at 20°C and 105°C) pre- and post-extraction, and amounts of aliphatic C–H removed using DRIFT, and by assessing the ability of extracts to cause repellency in acid-washed sand (AWS). Key findings are: (i) none of organic carbon content, amount of aliphatic C–H, or amount of material extracted give any significant correlation with repellency for this diverse range of soils; (ii) sample drying at 105°C is not necessarily useful before extraction, but may provide additional information on extraction effectiveness when used after extraction; (iii) the extraction removed repellency completely from 13 of the 15 repellent samples; (iv) extracts from all repellent and wettable control soils were capable of inducing repellency in AWS. The findings suggest that compounds responsible for repellency represent only a fraction of the extract composition and that their presence does not necessarily always cause repellency.


2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirosław Orzechowski ◽  
Sławomir Smólczyński ◽  
Paweł Sowiński ◽  
Beata Rybińska

Abstract The objective of the work was to investigate hydrophobic properties of soil formations with various amounts of organic matter and occurring in young glacial landscape. The research was carried out in mineral, mineral-organic and organic (slightly and strongly silted mucks, sedge peat, alder wood peat, reed peat) soil formations. Water repellency is very important in soil protection. It favors the formation of stable aggregates and prevents from soil erosion. The study was carried out applying two methods . water drop penetration time test (WDPT) and alcohol percentage test (AP). Among 51 analyzed soil samples in WDPT test, 64.7% of mineral and mineral-organic soil formations were hydrophilic. Among organic soil formations 37.6% was slightly and strongly hydrophobic and they represented strongly silted mucks. Unsilted and slightly silted mucks, weakly and strongly decomposed peats, were very strongly (18.8%) and extremely (43.6%) hydrophobic. AP test showed that strongly silted mucks were moderately and very strongly hydrophobic. Slightly silted mucks, and peats were very strongly and extremely hydrophobic. It can be stated that water repellency decreases simultaneously with the degree of siltation of organic soil formations.


Soil Research ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica T. Heath ◽  
Chris J. Chafer ◽  
Thomas F. A. Bishop ◽  
Floris F. Van Ogtrop

Soil properties can be considerably modified as a result of wildfire. This study examined the impact of wildfire on total carbon and water repellency at two study sites, namely Cranebrook and Wentworth Falls, located 45 and 75 km west of Sydney, Australia, respectively. Within each study site, we measured soil properties at two depth intervals from five burn severity classes along 15 transects (10 sample points per transect). Samples were taken 6, 12 and 36 months after wildfire. Soil total carbon was measured using LECO combustion analysis and potential soil water repellency was determined using water drop penetration time. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse the results, with burn severity and time as factors. Burn severity had a significant effect on both soil total carbon and water repellency at both study sites, whereas time was only significant for soil carbon at Wentworth Falls. Soil total carbon and water repellency were variable through time due to local environmental variables, such as rainfall and temperature. The relationship between soil total carbon and water repellency was strong for Cranebrook in the surface soil (r = 0.62) and lower in the subsurface soil (r = 0.41), but weaker at Wentworth Falls, with values of r = 0.22 and r = 0.15 in the surface and subsurface soils respectively.


2009 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 333-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M?ller ◽  
M. Deurer ◽  
T. Aslam ◽  
F. Rempt ◽  
G. Northcott ◽  
...  

Recently the loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) has been reported for some pastoral NZ soils The impact of decreased SOC on soil filtering capacity for pesticides was investigated using 24D The hypothesis was that in aggregated soils the filtering capacity for organic compounds depends on physical chemical and biological properties at the aggregate scale impacting water sorptivity pesticide sorption and pesticide degradation respectively and that these are related to the SOC content Indicators for these properties were identified namely the water repellency SOC content and microbial biomass and basal respiration rates Two pairs of sites with the same soil type texture landuse and climatic conditions but with significantly different SOC content within each of the pairs were selected For hydrophobic soils a SOC loss tended to have a negative impact on chemical and biological properties but a positive impact on the physical filtering capacity of aggregates for 24D


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Lichner ◽  
T. Orfánus ◽  
K. Novákova ◽  
M. Šír ◽  
M. Tesař

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of vegetation on the hydraulic conductivity of sandy soil at the locality Ml&aacute;ky II at Sekule (southwest Slovakia). The measurements were taken on the surface of a meadow (Meadow site), a 30-year old Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest (Forest site) and a glade (Glade site). In the glade, the measurements were also taken in the depth of 50 cm (Pure sand) to reduce the influence of vegetation on the soil properties. It was found that the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity k<sub>r</sub>(&minus;2 cm) as reduced due to the soil water repellency increased in the same order: Forest soil &lt; Glade soil &asymp; Meadow soil &lt; Pure sand, similarly as decreased the water drop penetration time t<sub>p</sub>: Forest soil &gt; Glade soil &asymp; Meadow soil &gt; Pure sand, which could refer to an inverse proportionality between the capillary suction and hydrophobic coating of the soil particles. The saturated hydraulic conductivity K<sub>s</sub> increased in the following order: Meadow soil &lt; Glade soil &asymp; Forest soil &lt; Pure sand; more than two-times higher K<sub>s</sub> at both the Forest and Glade sites than that at the Meadow site could be the result of both the patchy growth of vegetation with some areas of bare soil at the Glade site and the macropores (dead roots) in more homogeneous humic top-layer at the Forest site. The share B<sub>r</sub> of flux through the pores with radii r longer than approximately 0.5 mm decreased in the order: Forest soil &raquo; Meadow soil &gt; Glade soil &raquo; Pure sand, revealing the prevalence of preferential flow through macropores (dead roots) in the Forest site and a negligible share of macropores in the Pure sand.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document