Determining the effectiveness of carbon-based stabilizers blends in arresting soil erosion and elevating properties of Mollisols soils of North Western Himalayas

Abstract

Soil erosion and nutrients loss are serious problems on the hillslopes of North Western Himalayan Region. Huge loss and alteration in physico-chemical properties of top soil gradually reduces its productivity. In this study, an experiment was executed in Mollisols with 12% slope for two successive years under natural monsoon season with the objective to minimize soil loss and improve soil properties involving three soil amendments namely gypsum (G), biochar (B) and polyacrylamide (PAM). Incremental effect of B, PAM and G, were used at pre-determined dose of 800 and 1500 g/m2, 2 and 4 g/m2, and 250 and 500 g/m2 in first and second trial, respectively. Treatment effects were evaluated on runoff, soil erosion, biochar loss, major nutrient loss (N, P and K), soil pH, EC, hydraulic conductivity, bulk density, liquid and plastic limits, and biomass. Application of B+PAM reduced surface runoff by 24.44 and 43.13% and sediment yield by 42.43 and 84.61% in first trial and second trial, respectively. It also showed significant improvement in soil physico-chemical properties and biomass growth in comparison to other treatments. Similarly, nutrient loss was also found to reduce in the same proportion as runoff and soil loss. Support vector regression with linear function showed very reliable results in predicting biochar and major nutrient losses with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) more than 0.92 and 0.84, respectively, and correlation coefficient (CC) more than 0.98 and 0.93, respectively, during testing period.