Abstract
Forest management practices play an important role in regulating the soil water-holding capacity of plantation. However, most studies focus on soil water dynamics present during large-scale forest loss and afforestation events, while little is known about how soil water under different forest management practices responds to rainfall events and which factors mainly regulate soil water-holding capacity. In this study, a stable hydrogen isotope was used to explore the contribution of three natural rainfall events (8.9, 13.3 and 67.7 mm) to soil water (CRSW) in a Pinus massoniana plantation under four forest management practices (no thinning (NTN), understory removal (USR), light-intensity thinning (LIT) and heavy-intensity thinning (HIT)) in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of the Yangtze River Basin in China. Furthermore, a structural equation model was employed to determine the effects of vegetation biomass and soil properties on the CRSW. The results showed that plantation soil under different forest management practices exhibited different water-holding capacities. Following light (8.9 mm) and moderate (13.3 mm) rainfall events, the CRSW in the HIT stand was slightly higher than that in the other stands. Following heavy (66.7 mm) rainfall event, the CRSW of most layers in USR stand was not different from the other three stands, while the CRSW in the LIT and NTN stands was significantly higher than that in the HIT stand in the 0–100 cm soil layers, suggesting that soil in the LIT and NTN stands had a greater water-holding capacity than that in the HIT stand. In addition, soil properties were the main factors directly affecting the CRSW, explaining 60% and 37% of the variation in the CRSW on the first and seventh days after heavy rainfall, respectively. Overall, compared to the HIT stand, the LIT and NTN stands showed greater capacity in retaining rainwater. Therefore, under expected global changes with frequent occurrences of extreme precipitation events, methods involving light-intensity and no thinning should be employed to build up soil and water conservation functions, which will be critical for keeping water-holding capacity and moderating floods.
Highlights
Forest management practices play an important role in regulating the soil water-holding capacity of plantation
We further examined vegetation and soil properties to identify the factor that was the best predictor in regulating contribution of rainfall to soil water in the studied P. massoniana plantation
We applied hydrogen isotopes to measure the effects of different forest management practices on the contribution of rainfall to soil water
Summary
Forest management practices play an important role in regulating the soil water-holding capacity of plantation. Thinning and understory removal have a considerable influence on the spatial and temporal distribution of soil water and soil water-holding capacity in forest e cosystems[16,17] Different site conditions, plant species, and thinning intensities[18] It is unclear whether thinning and understory removal have positive impacts on soil water-holding capacity. Little is known about which factors drive soil water distribution under different forest management practices (i.e., thinning and understory removal). On the one hand, thinning and understory removal affected forest hydrological processes such as precipitation interception and vegetation evapotranspiration by regulating vegetation structures (stand density, the leaf area index, and canopy storage) and influenced soil water dynamics[30,31]. It is necessary to explore the main factors that determine soil water-holding capacity under different forest management practices
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