Discrepancies in Karst Soil Organic Carbon in Southwest China for Different Land Use Patterns: A Case Study of Guizhou Province

Zhenming Zhang, Xianfei Huang, Yunchao Zhou, Jiachun Zhang and Xubo Zhang
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Zhenming Zhang: Institute for Forest Resources & Environment of Guizhou, Key Laboratory of forest cultivation in plateau mountain area, College of Forestry, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Xianfei Huang: Institute for Forest Resources & Environment of Guizhou, Key Laboratory of forest cultivation in plateau mountain area, College of Forestry, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Yunchao Zhou: Institute for Forest Resources & Environment of Guizhou, Key Laboratory of forest cultivation in plateau mountain area, College of Forestry, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
Jiachun Zhang: Guizhou Botanical Garden, Guizhou Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, Guizhou 550000, China
Xubo Zhang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 21, 1-14

Abstract: The assessment of soil organic carbon (SOC) in mountainous karst areas is very challenging, due to the high spatial heterogeneity in SOC content and soil type. To study and assess the SOC storage in mountainous karst areas, a total of 22,786 soil samples were collected from 2,854 soil profiles in Guizhou Province in Southwest China. The SOC content in the soil samples was determined by the oxidation of potassium dichromate (K 2 Cr 2 O 7 ), followed by titration with iron (II) sulfate (FeSO 4 ). The SOC storage was assessed based on different land uses. The results suggested that the average SOC density in the top 1.00 m of soil associated with different land uses decreased in the following order: Croplands (9.58 kg m −2 ) > garden lands (9.07 kg m −2 ) > grasslands (8.07 kg m −2 ) > forestlands (7.35 kg m −2 ) > uncultivated lands (6.94 kg m −2 ). The SOC storage values in the 0.00–0.10 m, 0.00–0.20 m, 0.00–0.30 m and 0.00–1.00 m soil layers of Guizhou Province were 0.50, 0.87, 1.11 and 1.58 Pg, respectively. The SOC in the top 0.30 m of soil accounted for 70.25% of the total within the 0.00–1.00 m layer in Guizhou Province. It was concluded that assessing SOC storage in mountainous karst areas was more accurate when using land use rather than soil type. This result can supply a scientific reference for the accurate assessment of the SOC storage in the karst areas of southwestern China, the islands of Java, northern and central Vietnam, Indonesia, Kampot Province in Cambodia and in the general area of what used to be Yugoslavia, along with other karst areas with similar ecological backgrounds.

Keywords: land uses; rock exposure; soil thickness; soil organic carbon; spatial distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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