Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2005, Vol. 60 ›› Issue (5): 779-790.doi: 10.11821/xb200505009

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Effect of Different Land-use Systems on Soil Properties in the Alluvial Plain-oasis in the Arid Land

LUO Geping, XU Wenqiang, CHEN Xi   

  1. Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS, Urumqi 830011, China
  • Received:2005-05-07 Revised:2005-07-18 Online:2005-09-25 Published:2005-09-25
  • Supported by:

    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40471134; Knowledge Innovation Project of CAS, No.KZCX3-SW-326-03; the Project of "Western Light" Related to Eastern Scholar (Luo Geping, 2004)

Abstract:

Taking the alluvial plain oasis as a study case, we have investigated and evaluated the oasis soil properties related to different land-use systems during the process of the transformation of arid desert to oasis. The land-use systems selected consist of an annual crop field with a tillage history of less than 3 years, annual crop field of 3-6 years, annual crop field of more than 6 years, perennial crop field of less than 4 years, perennial crop field of 4-6 years, perennial crop field of more than 6 years, abandoned farmland of more than 3 years, woodland of more than 6 years, ecological forested land, natural shrubbery land, desert steppe and saline or alkaline field. We deliberately collected 5 soil samples in the different areas for each land-use system at the topsoil (0-20 cm) and subsoil (20-40 cm). The soil samples were sent to soil laboratory. We have employed SPSS statistical software to analyze the soil property data. The results show that: (1) The soils are mainly composed of sand and silt. Different land use systems significantly affect the sand, silt and clay distributions. Sand tends to decrease with increasing years of land cultivation and silt and clay trend to increase in the oasis soil. (2) Soil pH and nutrients significantly differ with the land-use systems. Soils of strong human-disturbed land-use systems presented a higher fertility level than those of other weak human-disturbed land-use systems. Oasis soil nutrients tend to increase with the increasing years of human disturbance. (3) The effect of land-use systems on soil salinity is significant. The soils of strong human-disturbed land-use systems have a lower salinity than those of weak human-disturbed land-use systems as a whole. The soil salinity usually tends to decrease with the decreasing years of reasonable human disturbance.

Key words: oasis, land-use, grain size, soil organic matter, soil nutrients, Sangong river