[Soil water reservoir properties of green belts in the central urban area of Shanghai, China].

Abstract

Taking the typical parks and public green belts in the central urban area of Shanghai for examples, water reservoir storage of soils of different types and influencing factors were investigated based on field surveys. The results showed that the total reservoir capacity of soils of the green belts in the central urban area of Shanghai was relatively low. However, the whole green belts still accumulated a large amount of water, which reached up to 1.88×107 m3. The existing water volume was 75.7% of the total reservoir capacity, while the remaining water storage was relatively low. The detention capacity and the effective storage of green belts were 31.6% and 27.2%, respectively. The dead storage was 44.5 %. Moreover, some difference existed in the water reservoirs for different vegetation types. The total water reservoir capacity of soils and the remaining water-storage space of the tree and brush lands were obviously higher than those of the grass lands. The water-detention capacity and the effective storage of the brush lands were remarkably higher than those of the tree and grass lands, but there was no remarkable difference among various vegetation types for both the existing water volume and the dead water storage. Thus, reducing soil compaction, increasing organic-matter content, improving physical properties and optimizing plant allocation of green belts would improve the water reservoir capacity effectively for the urban green belt soils.