Soil Quality and Its Potential Indicators under Different Land Use Systems in the Shivaliks of Indian Punjab

Bharat Bhushan Vashisht, Bijesh Maharjan, Sandeep Sharma and Samanpreet Kaur
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Bharat Bhushan Vashisht: Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India
Bijesh Maharjan: Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Panhandle Research and Extension Center (PREC), Scottsbluff, NE 69361, USA
Sandeep Sharma: Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India
Samanpreet Kaur: Department of Soil and Water Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab 141004, India

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: The present study assessed the overall state of the soil based on the most sensitive soil attributes under different land uses—i.e., rainfed agriculture, mixed forest, afforestation and non-arable lands—in the lower Shivaliks of Indian Punjab. The soil parameters—i.e., erosion ratio, bulk density and water retention characteristics—and fertility parameters were integrated under different land uses to identify potential soil quality indicators.The overall state of the soil, based on a weighted average of primary soil functions under different land uses through fuzzy modeling, was deemed best for agricultural land use (0.515), followed by forests (0.465) and non-arable lands (0.456), and deemed worst under afforestation (0.428). Among the different land use systems, principal component analysis (PCA) clearly separated the agriculture and forest samples from afforestation and non-arable lands samples. The contribution of potential indicators such as erosion ratio (ER), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) toward the soil quality index (SQI) was substantial. The order of contribution of the selected indicators to the SQI was 53.5%, 34.3% and 19.9% for ER, P and K, respectively. These indicators are most influential for studying real time soil health and ecological processes in the future, under various land use systems in degraded agroecosystems like the Shivaliks.

Keywords: Shivaliks; land use; potential indicators; soil state; soil quality index; principal component analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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