Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2008, Vol. 63 ›› Issue (7): 703-713.doi: 10.11821/xb200807004

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Differ ent Vegetation Types on Soil Moisture in Deep Loess Soil Profiles

WANG Zhiqiang1, LIU Baoyuan1, ZHANG Yan2   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
    2. School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
  • Received:2008-04-10 Revised:2008-05-15 Online:2008-07-25 Published:2008-07-25
  • Supported by:

    National Key Basic Research Special Foundation Project, No.2007CB407204; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40471082

Abstract:

This study was to examine the effects of main vegetation types on soil moisture and its interannual variations. Soil moisture in 0-10 m deep profiles of six vegetation types, i.e., crop, grass, planted shrub of caragana, planted forests of arborvitae, pine and the mixture of pine and arborvitae were measured in 2001, 2005 and 2006. Soil moisture in about 0-3 m of cropland and about 0-2 m of other vegetation types varied interannually dependent on annual precipitation, but was rather stable interannually below this depth under all six vegetation types. In 0-2 m, soil moisture of cropland was significantly greater than those of all other vegetation types, but there were no significant differences among other vegetation types. In 2-10 m, there was no significant moisture difference between crop and grass, but the soil moisture of both was significantly higher than planted brush and forests. The planted caragana brush and forests had depleted soil moisture below 2 m to or near wilting point, and there were no significant soil moisture differences among different forest types.

Key words: Loess Plateau, semiarid area, vegetation type, soil moisture