Effects of Landscape Positions and Landscape Types on Soil Properties and Chlorophyll Content of Citrus in a Sloping Orchard in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China

Siyue Sun, Guolin Zhang, Tieguang He, Shufang Song and Xingbiao Chu
Additional contact information
Siyue Sun: College of the Arts, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Guolin Zhang: College of Architecture and Landscape, Peking University, Beijing 100080, China
Tieguang He: Agricultural Resources and Environment Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning 530007, China
Shufang Song: School of Information and Statistics, Guangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanning 530003, China
Xingbiao Chu: College of the Arts, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: In recent years, soil degradation and decreasing orchard productivity in the sloping orchards of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of China have received considerable attention both inside and outside the country. More studies pay attention to the effects of topography on soil property changes, but less research is conducted from the landscape. Therefore, understanding the effects of landscape positions and landscape types on soil properties and chlorophyll content of citrus in a sloping orchard is of great significance in this area. Our results showed that landscape positions and types had a significant effect on the soil properties and chlorophyll content of citrus. The lowest soil nutrient content was detected in the upper slope position and sloping land, while the highest exists at the footslope and terraces. The chlorophyll content of citrus in the middle and upper landscape position was significantly higher than the footslope. The redundancy analysis showed that the first two ordination axes together accounted for 81.32% of the total variation, which could be explained by the changes of soil total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total potassium, available nitrogen, available potassium, organic matter, pH, and chlorophyll content of the citrus. Overall, this study indicates the significant influence of landscape positions and types on soil properties and chlorophyll content of citrus. Further, this study provides a reference for the determination of targeted land management measures and orchard landscape design so that the soil quality and orchard yield can be improved, and finally, the sustainable development of agriculture and ecology can be realized.

Keywords: agriculture landscape; chlorophyll content of citrus; landscape position; soil properties; terraces (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4288/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4288/ (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:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:8:p:4288-:d:534815

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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