Fertility and management strategies of soils in rural and urban forest ecosystems: a review of selected rural and urban forests in Ghana and USA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Healthy soils are paramount to forest ecosystems for the provision of resources required to drive net primary productivity. This review provides an overview of rural and urban forest ecosystems in terms of soil fertility and management strategies in select areas. The Bobiri Forest Reserve (BFR), Ghana was chosen as a representative of the rural forest whilst Independence Community Park (ICP), Baton Rouge, Louisiana was selected to represent an urban forest. A literature search on soil fertility and management strategies of rural and urban forest ecosystems was conducted. The history of soil fertility and the management of rural and urban forest soils were concisely discussed. The USDA web soil survey was conducted to identify the soil types and characteristics of the ICP. The soil types of BFR were also identified and discussed. It emerged from the review that urban forests face a high risk of soil degradation through compaction, landfilling, construction, depletion of soil nutrients, loss of capacity to retain soil water, and inhibition of soil carbon sequestration. To ensure that informed management decisions are taken for the development and policy planning of the forest ecosystems, a list of progressive recommendations has been provided including maintaining optimum forest soil conditions that favour regeneration and long-term survival of desired forest vegetation.