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Soil moisture dynamics under Caragana korshinskii shrubs of different ages in Wuzhai County on the Loess Plateau, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

Haibin LIANG ,
Yayong XUE ,
Jianwei SHI ,
Zongshan LI ,
Guohua LIU  and
Bojie FU
Haibin LIANG
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Email: [email protected] University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Institute of Loess Plateau, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
Yayong XUE
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of West China's Environmental System (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Jianwei SHI
Affiliation:
Institute of Loess Plateau, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
Zongshan LI*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Email: [email protected]
Guohua LIU
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Email: [email protected]
Bojie FU
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Email: [email protected]
*
*Corresponding author
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Abstract

Soil moisture is a key factor affecting vegetation growth and survival in arid and semi-arid regions. Knowledge of deep soil moisture dynamics is very important for guiding vegetation restoration and for improving land management practices on the water-limited Loess Plateau. Temporal changes and vertical variations in deep soil moisture (at soil depths of 0–600cm) combined with soil moisture availability were monitored in situ under Caragana korshinskii shrubs of different ages (named CK-10a, CK-20a and CK-35a) in the Loess hilly region during the growing season of 2013. The soil moisture content (SMC) under C. korshinskii shrubs of different ages was highly consistent with the seasonal precipitation variations and generally decreased as follows: CK-10a>CK-20a>abandoned land>CK-35a. The SMC varied greatly over time during the growing season (P<0.01), decreasing from April to May and then slowly increasing with some fluctuation from June to October. The SMC drastically decreased with depth from 0–300cm and then gradually increased with some fluctuation from 300–600cm. A critical turning point and transition zone connecting the shallow and deep soil moisture occurred at 200–300cm. Therefore, the soil profile was divided into active, secondary active and relatively steady soil layers in terms of soil moisture. The SMC fluctuated at depths of 0–100cm and 300–400cm and was relatively stable in the deeper soil layers. The amount of available soil moisture gradually decreased as the forest stand age increased, especially at CK-35a, where most of the soil moisture was unavailable for plant use. In addition, our study indicates that a large-scale restoration strategy with pure shrubland or woodland may not be suitable for soil moisture recovery in arid environments.

Keywords

Caragana korshinskii Kom.dynamic variationLoess Plateausoil moisture
Type
Articles
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 109 , Issue 3-4: Earth Surface Processes and Environmental Sustainability in China , September 2018 , pp. 387 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2018 

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