Abstract
Soil hydraulic properties are very sensitive to land-use in regions susceptible to physical degradation. Intensive agricultural practices often lead to soil compaction and erosion in the investigated area. The main goal of this paper was to evaluate the impact of land-use on the pore size distribution and water retention in loamy soils. The soil water retention curve (SWRC) combined the total porosity and the water retention of the undisturbed sample at 3, 10, 31, 100, 310, and 1000 hPa suctions and the disturbed sample at 1.5 MPa. The triple-exponential model approximated the curve’s course, and its derivative defined the distinct macro-, structural, and textural pore maxima, with characteristic suctions corresponding to SWRC inflection points. The soil organic carbon content had the greatest influence on the content of all three pore classes. The water retention properties followed the hierarchical pore size distribution in the four research plots and decreased in the identical orchard > forest > grassland > arable soil order. These results show that the orchard and forest areas are the most appropriate land uses with respect to porosity and water retention, while the grassland has not fully recovered after its conversion from arable soil and remains relatively poor, and the arable soil properties are the worst.
Highlights
The organisation of soil particles and associated pores between particles determines the hydraulic properties of soils and this fundamentally affects the impact of rainfall and drought on soils and ecosystems in this era of ongoing climate change
Soil pH decreased as arable > orchard > grassland > forest plots, with higher values resulting after soil acidity adjustment by liming the arable and orchard soils, and the differences in pH were significant at p < 0.01, except between the grassland and arable plots and those in the forest and orchard
Soil analysis of the four research plots reveals that land-use has a significant impact on basic soil properties, pore systems, and water retention
Summary
The organisation of soil particles and associated pores between particles determines the hydraulic properties of soils and this fundamentally affects the impact of rainfall and drought on soils and ecosystems in this era of ongoing climate change. The literature commonly distinguishes macro-, structural, and textural pores [1]. Macro-pores typically include pores formed by tillage and bio-pores produced by soil biota [1]. Textural pores form between primary soil particles and these are known as matrix, intra-aggregate, and inter-particle pores [1,2,3]. Soil hydraulic properties typically include soil water retention and soil hydraulic conductivity functions, and this research focuses on the first of these properties. The soil water retention curves (SWRC) determined experimentally when studying soil hydraulic properties are a useful tool in the study of the soil pore size distribution (PSD).
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