Effects of land conversion from native shrub to pistachio orchard on soil erodibility in an arid region

Abstract

Land-use change through degrading natural vegetation for agricultural production adversely affects many of soil properties particularly organic carbon content of soils. The native shrub land and grassland of Gaziantep-Adiyaman plateau that is an important pistachio growing eco-region have been cleared to convert into pistachio orchard for the last 50 to 60 years. In this study, the effects of conversion of natural vegetation into agricultural uses on soil erodibility have been investigated. Soil samples were collected from surface of agricultural fields and adjacent natural vegetation areas, and samples were analyzed for some soil erodibility indices such as dispersion ratio (DR), erosion ratio (ER), structural stability index (SSI), Henin's instability index (I ), and aggregate size distribution after wet sieving (AggSD). According to the statistical evaluation, these two areas were found as different from each other in terms of erosion indices except for I index (P < 0.001 for DR and ER or P < 0.01 for SSI). In addition, native shrub land and converted land to agriculture were found different in terms of AggSD in all aggregate size groups. As a contrary to expectations, correlation tests showed that there were no any interaction between soil organic carbon and measured erodibility indices in two areas. In addition, significant relationships were determined between measured variables and soil textural fractions as statistical. These obtaining findings were attributed to changing of textural component distribution and initial aggregate size distribution results from land-use change in the study area. Study results were explained about hierarchical aggregate formation mechanism.

Distribution of Shrubland and Grassland Soil Erodibility on the Loess Plateau

“…Soil erodibility is the ease with which soil is detached by splash during rainfall, by surface flow or both [ 8 ], and it is one of the important indicators of land degradation [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Existing studies at the arid and semiarid places in Anatolia [ 12 ], Argentina [ 13 ], Australia [ 14 ], China [ 15 , 16 , 17 ], Morocco [ 18 ], Iran [ 19 , 20 , 21 ], Spain [ 22 ] and United states [ 23 ] have shown that soil erodibility is influenced by global climate change [ 24 ] and land use change [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 25 ]. The changes of land use types alter the vegetation coverage and then influence the soil quality and soil properties such as the soil particle distribution, soil organic carbon content and soil texture [ 19 , 23 ].…”

Estimation and spatial distribution of some soil erodibility parameters in soils of Ilgaz National Park

“…The sensitivity of soils to erosion is due to differences of their physical and chemical properties which affect soil erosion. In many studies conducted by some researchers, it has been reported that the texture, structure, hydraulic conductivity, organic matter content are the most important soil properties which affects soil erodibility (Imani et al, 2014;Yakupoğlu et al, 2017;Celilov and Dengiz, 2019). A total of 151 soil samples were taken at the research site.…”

Determining the effect of deforestation on sustainable water supply in a semi-arid mountainous watershed by using storm water management model

“…Celik (2005) also reported that organic matter decreased when rangelands were converted to agricultural areas. It is well known that soil texture is considered as basis property of soil and is not changed easily (Prichett and Fisher, 1987), while organic matter is one of the dynamic properties of soil (Yakupoglu et al, 2017).…”