Assessing the Ecological Success of Restoration by Afforestation on the Chinese Loess Plateau
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Afforestation has been accepted as a key measure for preventing soil erosion on the Chinese Loess Plateau for 40 years. In this study, we assessed the ecological success of afforestation by comparing afforested with pre‐afforested (croplands) and natural recovery sites in a typical watershed on the Loess Plateau. We evaluated the ecosystem response in terms of vegetation structure, plant diversity, and several key ecological processes of soil moisture, soil nutrients, and soil anti‐erodibility. Compared with the croplands, we found that the following indexes were significantly enhanced in afforested sites: vegetation structure and species diversity (species richness, Margalef index, Shannon–Wiener index, and Sorensen's similarity index), soil nutrients (organic carbon, total nitrogen, extractable ammonium nitrogen, available potassium, and available phosphorous), and soil anti‐erodibility indexes (water‐stable soil aggregates, mean weight diameter, and the ratio of soil structure dispersion). Afforestation offered few additional advantages when compared with natural recovery sites. More importantly, afforestation had significant negative effects on soil desiccation, with negative impacts on the long‐term sustainability of these ecosystems. In order to develop self‐sustaining and functional ecosystems, our results suggest that natural revegetation offers a more adaptive and appropriate method of ecological restoration on the Loess Plateau.Keywords:
Afforestation
Revegetation
Restoration Ecology
Soil carbon
This paper analyzes the physical, chemical and biological properties of the red soil on six experimental plots with different use patterns. The results showed that with the degradation of vegetation, soil erosion was aggravated, the soil had higher soil compact, lower total porosity and lower physical moisture. The content of soil nutrients such as organic substances, total nitrogen and microbial biomass and the activity of enzyme was also lower. On the other hand, the eroded red soil had been obviously improved with increment of cultivated time and soil nature degree after virescence, mainly including the amount of runoff and sediment loss decreased greatly, increment of water-stabled aggregates, and the improvement of soil nutrient content. Compared with the effects of six various use patterns on soil and water loss control and red soil fertility improvement, the woodlands were better than grasslands, and the broadleaf forest was better than conifer forest.\;
Red soil
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Soil structure
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Feeding the world population, 7.3 billion in 2015 and projected to increase to 9.5 billion by 2050, necessitates an increase in agricultural production of ~70% between 2005 and 2050. Soil degradation, characterized by decline in quality and decrease in ecosystem goods and services, is a major constraint to achieving the required increase in agricultural production. Soil is a non-renewable resource on human time scales with its vulnerability to degradation depending on complex interactions between processes, factors and causes occurring at a range of spatial and temporal scales. Among the major soil degradation processes are accelerated erosion, depletion of the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool and loss in biodiversity, loss of soil fertility and elemental imbalance, acidification and salinization. Soil degradation trends can be reversed by conversion to a restorative land use and adoption of recommended management practices. The strategy is to minimize soil erosion, create positive SOC and N budgets, enhance activity and species diversity of soil biota (micro, meso, and macro), and improve structural stability and pore geometry. Improving soil quality (i.e., increasing SOC pool, improving soil structure, enhancing soil fertility) can reduce risks of soil degradation (physical, chemical, biological and ecological) while improving the environment. Increasing the SOC pool to above the critical level (10 to 15 g/kg) is essential to set-in-motion the restorative trends. Site-specific techniques of restoring soil quality include conservation agriculture, integrated nutrient management, continuous vegetative cover such as residue mulch and cover cropping, and controlled grazing at appropriate stocking rates. The strategy is to produce “more from less” by reducing losses and increasing soil, water, and nutrient use efficiency.
Soil Quality
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Soil degradation, defined as lowing and losing of soil functions, is becoming more and more serious worldwide in the last decades, and exerts a thread to agricultural production and terrestrial ecosystem. It is estimated that nearly 2 billion hectares of soil resources of the world have been degraded, namely around 22 percent of all cropland, pasture, forest, and woodland. Globally, soil erosion, chemical deterioration and physical degradation are the important forms amongst various types of soil degradation. As a natural process, soil degradation can be enhanced or dampened by a variety of human activities such as inappropriate agricultural management, overgrazing and deforestation, etc. Degraded soil means less food. As a result of soil degradation, it is estimated that about 11.9 ～13.4 percent of the global agricultural supply has been lost in the past five decades. Besides, soil degradation is also associated with off site problems of sedimentation, climate change, watershed functions, and changes in natural habitats leading to loss of genetic stock and biodiversity. Therefore, it is quite essential to combat soil degradation at different levels and scales worldwide, not only for food security and ecological health, but also for guarantee of global sustainable development.
Overgrazing
Deforestation
Soil governance
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Impact of land degradation on soil productivity, soil fauna, bio-degradation process and environment
Land degradation is a major issue of this time because of its adverse impact on soil productivity, human and animal health, soil and water quality on local, regional and global scale. Out of 329 million ha of total geographical area in India, the total degraded area accounts for 120.7 million ha, of which 73.3 million ha is degraded by water erosion, 12.4 million ha by wind erosion, 6.73 million ha by salinity and alkalinity and 25 million ha by soil acidity. Land degradation is of mainly three types such as physical, chemical and biological. Physical degradation refers to the deterioration of the physical properties of soil. Nutrient depletion is a major cause of chemical degradation while reduction in soil organic matter content, decline in biomass carbon and decrease in activity and diversity of soil fauna are ramification of biological degradation. Thus land degradation has both on site and off site effect on soil productivity. Soil erosion has short-term effect on decline in crop yield and agronomic production and long-term effect decline in soil quality and productivity and nutrient use efficiency of crop. Land degradation decreases soil productivity because of adverse impact on soil physical, chemical and biological properties. Removal of different salts, nutrients, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides through run-off and leaching process and deposition of sediments constitutes environmental pollution.
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The red soil region of subtropics is one of the most densely populated areas in China in which natural ecosystem has been heavily destructed and degraded to ecological weakness and climatic characteristics.The research of degradation,restoration and reconstruction in these regions has become one of the hot points in soil science,water and soil conservation science and ecology.The research has concentrated on causes,process,mechanism and features of soil degradation.The ecological restoration about degraded red soil was discussed.
Restoration Ecology
Degradation
Red soil
Environmental degradation
Ecological engineering
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Soil degradation threatens soil health in terms of soils functioning as complex living biological systems, delivering multiple ecosystem goods and services. For example, soil erosion removes the most fertile topsoil, reducing soil depth and soil health, which leads to poor crop growth. This impacts on the economic sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods. This chapter identifies different types of soil degradation, focusing on soil erosion by water. Soil erosion processes are described, and how these change soil properties that relate directly to crop growth, including soil depth, water-holding capacity, biota, carbon content and nutrient reserves. The causal links between soil erosion and crop production are presented, including attempts to quantify the economic costs incurred. It is likely that current impacts and costs will increase further under climate change, increasing the need for effective soil erosion mitigation measures that also enhance soil health.
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The development and construction projects have led to a large number of artificial slopes and ecological damages.The ecological restoration has greatly accelerated the control process of soil erosion,and highlighted the great role of soil and water conservation in the construction of ecological environment.However,in some especially difficult sites,general ecological restoration technology can not work and meet the people's requirements.Therefore,the engineering revegetation technology for the difficult sites will be widely studied and applied.The concepts,technical systems and application types of the engineering revegetation technology are analyzed and discussed in this article.
Revegetation
Restoration Ecology
Ecological engineering
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Abstract National governments are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of their soil resources and are shaping strategies accordingly. Implicit in any such strategy is that degradation threats and their potential effect on important soil properties and functions are defined and understood. In this paper, we aimed to review the principal degradation threats on important soil properties in the UK , seeking quantitative data where possible. Soil erosion results in the removal of important topsoil and, with it, nutrients, C and porosity. A decline in soil organic matter principally affects soil biological and microbiological properties, but also impacts on soil physical properties because of the link with soil structure. Soil contamination affects soil chemical properties, affecting nutrient availability and degrading microbial properties, whilst soil compaction degrades the soil pore network. Soil sealing removes the link between the soil and most of the ‘spheres’, significantly affecting hydrological and microbial functions, and soils on re‐developed brownfield sites are typically degraded in most soil properties. Having synthesized the literature on the impact on soil properties, we discuss potential subsequent impacts on the important soil functions, including food and fibre production, storage of water and C, support for biodiversity, and protection of cultural and archaeological heritage. Looking forward, we suggest a twin approach of field‐based monitoring supported by controlled laboratory experimentation to improve our mechanistic understanding of soils. This would enable us to better predict future impacts of degradation processes, including climate change, on soil properties and functions so that we may manage soil resources sustainably.
Soil functions
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Overgrazing
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Desertification
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