Study of soil physical properties and water infiltration rates in different types of land use

Abstract

Studying the changes in soil properties caused by different land uses allows measures to be adopted that will reduce the risk of future negative effects. The aim of this study was to evaluate soil physical properties and quantify water infiltration for different types of land use in the Santa Catarina Plateau of southern Brazil. The research was conducted on a 1,200 ha rural property. The land use types selected were natural forest (NF), planted pine (PP), crop-livestock integration (CLI), and burned natural rangeland (BR). A sample survey was carried out in nine different areas for each land use. Samples were collected from four soil layers and the soil bulk density (Bd), total porosity (Tp), and macropore (Ma), micropore (Mi), and biopore (Bio) volumes were measured. Water infiltration tests were performed to obtain the initial (ii) and final (fi) water infiltration rates into the soil, and the total amount of water that had infiltrated the soil (Ti). In NF, Bd was lower and Tp was higher than in other types of land use. The forest vegetation (NF and PP) had higher Ma and Bio volumes in the superficial layers of the soil. Water infiltration was markedly different between land use types. The NF had the highest ii, fi, and Ti values followed by PP, whereas the CLI and BR areas had drastically lower infiltration parameters with BR having the lowest values. The variables ii, fi, and Ti correlated positively with Tp, Ma, and Bio, but negatively with Bd.