Land Use Affects Soil Water Balance and Soil Desiccation within the Soil Profile: Evidence from the Western Loess Plateau Case

Linlin Wang, Zhuzhu Luo, Lingling Li, Junhong Xie, Setor Kwami Fudjoe and Effah Zechariah
Additional contact information
Linlin Wang: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Zhuzhu Luo: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Lingling Li: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Junhong Xie: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Setor Kwami Fudjoe: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Effah Zechariah: State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: This study evaluated the properties of soil water dynamics and desiccation to a depth of 500 cm and tested the idea that land use affects soil drying in deep profiles. Four land use types were chosen: farmland, artificial forest and grassland, and abandoned land. Soil water content was most outstanding under long-term wheat fields, but average soil water content under artificial vegetation of Caragana korshinskii Kom. and alfalfa dropped to 6–8% within the 160–500 cm soil profile, very near to the 7.0% wilting point. Long-term continuous maize cultivation in a fully mulched ridge–furrow system significantly depleted soil water and resulted in a dried soil layer with a thickness of 240 cm. Short-term or long-term land abandonment enhanced soil reservoir and reduced soil water storage deficit degree compared to long-term maize and artificial vegetation. Soil water storage in the 160–500 cm soil profile was depleted by 240 and 464 mm under long-term maize and Caragana korshinskii Kom., respectively, by 267, 319, 381, and 463 mm under 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-year alfalfa, and by −58, 278, 234, and 93 mm under 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-year abandonment land, respectively, compared to long-term wheat. Based on the analysis of long-term experimental results, this study shows that the phenomenon of soil drying caused by long-term intensive maize production cannot be ignored in semi-arid areas and that natural re-vegetation under long-term abandonment, rather than artificial vegetation, may be the best type of vegetation reconstruction for this region based on soil water balances.

Keywords: land use types; soil water content; dried soil layer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/8/1136/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/8/1136/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:8:p:1136-:d:870375

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().