No abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the influence of land cover changes on soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) in the Daqing Prefecture of China, where heavy industrialisation in the form of dense oil wells has impacted the environment. Time‐series presentations for the period 1978 to 2008 of remotely sensed data and soil survey data were used to assess the extent of the changes. The study revealed soil degradation under all land cover types and in all soil types, grassland retreat (−15 per cent), swampland retreat (−45 per cent) and increases in the area of farmland (+19 per cent), sand land (+1450 per cent) and alkaline land (+52 per cent). Depletion of the SOC pool occurred in swampland (−64 per cent) both because of the decrease in the area of swampland and because of a decrease in SOC density (−34 per cent). An increase in the SOC pool occurred in alkaline land because of the increase in the area and also because of an increase in SOC density (+297 per cent), but there was little change in the SOC pool in farmland because the increase in area was largely offset by a decrease in SOC density (−14 per cent). The decrease in the STN pool was substantial (−44 per cent), with the largest contributor being the decrease in swamplands (−74 per cent), partly because of the decrease in the area of swampland and partly because of a decrease in STN density (−52 per cent). Large decreases in the STN pool also occurred in farmland (−22 per cent) and grassland (−41 per cent). The direct impacts of construction associated with the expansion of the oil industry were overshadowed by indirect impacts such as interference with water flows and water levels resulting in salinisation of soil. The study also revealed that land cover changes are much more dynamic than a simple analysis would reveal, and because of lag times in the loss of SOC, soil degradation will continue even if land cover changes cease. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Measurements of methane flux at a few inundated sites in China have been extrapolated to obtain estimates on a national scale. To enable those national estimates to be refined and to compare flux from geographically separated sites comprising the same wetland types, we used a closed chamber method to measure methane flux in uninundated Betula platyphylla-and Larix gmelinii-dominated peatlands in the Northeast China. Our measurements were taken from both vegetated and bare soil surfaces, and we compared flux with environmental measures including vegetation biomass, soil temperature and soil characteristics. We found that methane flux was low, and that there were no significant differences between wetland types, indicating that environmental influences were dominant. We found that flux was positively correlated to temperature in the surface layers of the soil, the above-ground biomass of the shrub and herb layers, total soil carbon and total soil nitrogen; and we suggest that emissions may be due to anaerobic microcosms in the surface layers. The methane production potentials of the soils were low and similar between both sites but inconsistent with the differences between fluxes, and inconsistent with production potentials and fluxes reported from the same wetland types elsewhere, indicating that there were subtle environmental differences between wetlands classed as being of the same type. Differences between fluxes in vegetated chambers with bare soil chambers were insignificant, indicating that no methane emission through aerenchyma occurred at our sites. We concluded that wetland type was not an accurate predictor of methane flux.

No abstract

No abstract