首页|Impacts of re-vegetation on soil water dynamics in a semiarid region of Northwest China
Impacts of re-vegetation on soil water dynamics in a semiarid region of Northwest China
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Elsevier
Understanding how vegetation (shrub) cover in drylands affects local-to-regional soil water dynamics andassociated water balances is of immense importance because of the abundance of afforestation projects worldwide.Vegetation's role in the control of soil water presents a particular challenge to soil water storage (SWS)management in the drylands of China. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a two-year study in the MuUs Desert of northwest China. The study involved the acquisition of in-situ soil water measurements within thefirst 180 cm of soil at three sand dune sites characterized by their differences in % shrub cover. The sand dunesvaried from a vegetation-free, bare-ground sand dune site (BF) and two partly vegetated sites, one with mediumlevel(40 %) and another with high shrub cover (80 %; MF and HF, respectively). Results revealed that the sitewith the high shrub cover (HF) suffered a net reduction in soil water content (SWC) by up to 32.7 and 39.8 % inthe shallow and deep subsoil (0–100 and 100–180 cm), respectively, when compared to corresponding changesat the BF site. Soil water content was shown to be largely influenced by site properties, namely shrub biomassand litter density (p < 0.05). Due to aboveground vegetation and rainfall interception by the litter, 32.2 mm ofeffective rainfall was reduced to the soil for every 10 %-increase in shrub cover. Bands of soil water depletionduring the dry year did not fully recover during the following wet year, resulting in the development of a driedsoil layer with an average SWC of 4.6–7.8 %. Increased evapotranspiration (ETtotal) led to a decrease in SWS and relative extractable soil water (REW), which caused ETtotal at HF to be lower than the rate observed at MF. Thesefindings highlight the need for improvements in current restoration strategies, meant at striking a balance betweenvegetation restoration and SWC by developing optimal plant-community cover and mosaicked vegetationsystems.
Dried soil layerDrylandsShrub coverSoil water deficitSoil water dynamicsWater balance
Shuai He、Chengfu Zhang、Fan-Rui Meng、Charles P.-A. Bourque、Zhenying Huang、Xiang Li
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College of Desert Control Science and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, People's Republic of China
Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, 28 Dineen Drive, PO Box 4400, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5A3, Canada
Laboratory of Quantitative Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, People's Republic of China
NETL
NSTL
Elsevier
