Significant Changes in Soil Properties in Arid Regions Due to Semicentennial Tillage—A Case Study of Tarim River Oasis, China

Ying Xiao, Mingliang Ye, Jing Zhang, Yamin Chen, Xinxin Sun, Xiaoyan Li and Xiaodong Song ()
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Ying Xiao: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
Mingliang Ye: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
Jing Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
Yamin Chen: School of Ecology, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
Xinxin Sun: College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
Xiaoyan Li: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
Xiaodong Song: State Key Laboratory of Soil and Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: Quantifying changes in soil properties greatly benefits our understanding of soil management and sustainable land use, especially in the context of strong anthropogenic activities and climate change. This study investigated the effects of long-term reclamation on soil properties in an artificial oasis region with a cultivation history of more than 50 years. Critical soil properties were measured at 77 sites, and a total of 462 soil samples were collected down to a depth of 1 m, which captures both surface and subsurface processes that are critical for long-term cultivation effects. Thirteen critical soil properties were analyzed, among which four properties—soil organic carbon (SOC), total phosphorus (TP), pH, and ammonium nitrogen (NH 4 ⁺)—were selected for detailed analysis due to their ecological significance and low intercorrelation. By comparing cultivated soils with nearby desert soils, this study found that semicentennial cultivation led to significant improvements in soil properties, including increased concentrations of SOC, NH 4 ⁺, and TP, as well as reduced pH throughout the soil profile, indicating improved fertility and reduced alkalinity. Further analysis suggested that environmental factors—including temperature, clay content, evaporation differences between surface and subsurface layers, sparse vegetation cover, cotton root distribution, as well as prolonged irrigation and fertilization—collectively contributed to the enhancement of SOC decomposition and the reduction of soil alkalinity. Furthermore, three-dimensional digital soil mapping was performed to investigate the effects of long-term cultivation on the distributions of soil properties at unvisited sites. The soil depth functions were separately fitted to model the vertical variation in the soil properties, including the exponential function, power function, logarithmic function, and cubic polynomial function, and the parameters were extrapolated to unvisited sites via the quantile regression forest (QRF), boosted regression tree, and multiple linear regression techniques. The QRF technique yielded the best performance for SOC (R 2 = 0.78 and RMSE = 0.62), TP (R 2 = 0.79 and RMSE = 0.12), pH (R 2 = 0.78 and RMSE = 0.10), and NH 4 + (R 2 = 0.71 and RMSE = 0.38). The results showed that depth function coupled with machine learning methods can predict the spatial distribution of soil properties in arid areas efficiently and accurately. These research conclusions will lead to more effective targeted measures and guarantees for local agricultural development and food security.

Keywords: arid regions; semicentennial reclamation; depth function; spatial prediction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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