Differences in soil-water characteristics of monoculture oil-palm plantations, agroforestry oil-palm plantations and natural forest

Abstract

This study aims to determine the soil water retention curves and infiltration rates for three different land use types located in Jambi province, Sumatra, Indonesia: natural forest, monoculture and agroforestry oil palm plantations (divided into new agroforestry (2,5 years) and old agroforestry (over 10 years)). Data on the infiltration rate of the soil for the different land use types was collected by using a double infiltrometer. A Horton curve was fitted to these measurements. The results on the soil water characteristics were compared between all land use types. This concluded that there is a significant difference in constant infiltration rate between the value of the natural forest and the new agroforestry and the value of the other land use types. The forest also has a significant smaller porosity. The results of the study concluded that plantations have a bad influence on the soil characteristics investigated, but in general agroforestry has a less bad impact than monoculture. However, this is highly dependent on the features of the locations investigated.