Influence of Agricultural Land Use Change on the Selected Physico-Chemical Soil Properties in Kilombero Valley Floodplain, Southeastern Tanzania

Zhenxin Li

doi:10.19080/ijesnr.2019.21.556074

Abstract

Land use change attributed to increased population pressure, government policies, economic development, and biophysical factors has affected the soil properties, which plays an important role in agricultural productivity. Thus, this study investigated the effects of changes in land use on some selected soil physicochemical properties in the Kilombero valley floodplain, Tanzania. Soils were collected from the pristine wetland, forest, upland cultivation, and rice farm. The agricultural land considered for this study has been converted from forest and wetland, and under cultivation for over 10 years. The total of 48 soil samples were collected from depth of 0-20cm and 20-40cm to investigate the variance of cation exchange capacity (CEC), total organic matter (TOM), total nitrogen (TN), soil pH, bulk density (BD), total phosphorus (TP), soil moisture content (SMW) and water stable aggregates (WSA) in the four selected land use types.

Highlights

The land use change is associated with agricultural expansion and intensification, deforestation and expansion of human settlement caused by increased population pressure, government policies, economic development and biophysical factors such as climate change and variability [1,2]
The study was conducted to investigate the impact of agricultural land use change on soil physico-chemical properties
The study concluded that the magnitude of some soil quality parameters varies with depth in different land use types

Summary

Introduction

The land use change is associated with agricultural expansion and intensification, deforestation and expansion of human settlement caused by increased population pressure, government policies, economic development and biophysical factors such as climate change and variability [1,2]. The intensification of agriculture land use into the wetland is attributed to the increased dependence on the wetland for food security and human livelihood [6]. Wetlands are considered to have higher production potential and persistent to global climate change, making it a resistant ecosystem than upland ecosystems [6]. These land use changes have considerable effect on the dynamics of the soil properties resulting in soil deg-

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion