The Impact of Land-Use on the Hierarchical Pore Size Distribution and Water Retention Properties in Loamy Soils

Abstract

Soil hydraulic properties are very sensitive to land-use in regions susceptible to physical degradation. Intensive agricultural practices often lead to soil compaction and erosion in the investigated area. The main goal of this paper was to evaluate the impact of land-use on the pore size distribution and water retention in loamy soils. The soil water retention curve (SWRC) combined the total porosity and the water retention of the undisturbed sample at 3, 10, 31, 100, 310, and 1000 hPa suctions and the disturbed sample at 1.5 MPa. The triple-exponential model approximated the curve's course, and its derivative defined the distinct macro-, structural, and textural pore maxima, with characteristic suctions corresponding to SWRC inflection points. The soil organic carbon content had the greatest influence on the content of all three pore classes. The water retention properties followed the hierarchical pore size distribution in the four research plots and decreased in the identical orchard > forest > grassland > arable soil order. These results show that the orchard and forest areas are the most appropriate land uses with respect to porosity and water retention, while the grassland has not fully recovered after its conversion from arable soil and remains relatively poor, and the arable soil properties are the worst.

The effect of application of digestate and agro-food industry sludges on Dystric Cambisol porosity

“…Authors added that pore creation could result from different mechanisms involving: i) shrinking and swelling of soil and organic particles as a response to wetting and drying cycles ii) decomposition of organic matter by microorganisms, iii) fungal hyphae creation that pushing aside silt-sized particles. Similar findings were also obtained by Dlapa et al [28], who reported that a higher carbon content promotes the formation of elongated pores with a characteristic pore diameter of 15-27 μm. Authors added that creation of micro-crack improves soil hydraulic properties due to the higher ability of structural pores to drain water during the rainfall.…”

“…In contrast, textural porosity refers to pores within aggregates and between primary soil particles. These kinds of structures are also known as matrix, intra-aggregate, and inter-particle pores [28].…”

“…Among many publications concerning the effect of the organic waste application on agricultural land, only a small percentage deals with soil physical properties, including soil porosity. Soil porosity affects soil processes such as the movement of air, water and other fluids [28,29], water retention [6], availability of nutrients and microbial activity [30]. Spatial arrangement and pore size distributions play also an important role in the long-term organic carbon storage and its availability in soil [31].…”

Soil–air phase characteristics: Response to texture, density, and land use in Greenland and Denmark

“…Compaction obviously results in an overall reduction of the total porosity (Φ), but more importantly, it results in a shift in the pore-size distribution with a reduction of the macroporosity (D ϕ > 30 μm, pore diameter D ϕ ) and an increase in micro-porosity (D ϕ < 6 μm) (Lipiec et al, 2012). Dörner et al (2016) and Dlapa et al (2020) showed that LU and LU change had significant negative effects on the water-retention and air-phase characteristics in terms of soil-aeration processes.…”

Water retention of the organic soil horizon in a central European deciduous forest

“…Research in Slovakia has mostly focused on the forest as a complex system, which retains water (Čaboun and Minďáš 2003, Holko et al 2009and Čaboun et al 2010. Several authors have also studied the influence of the OHFS on SWR (Heiskanen and Makitalo 2002, Greiffenhagen et al 2006, Li et al 2014, Gomyo and Kuraji 2016, Hlaváčiková et al 2016, Zvala et al 2018, Dlapa et al 2020and Zhu et al 2020.…”