Effects of Different Land Use Types on the Surface Soil Nutrients in Burned Area

Purpose For the sake of discovering the effects of different land use types on soil nutrient characters in burned area.

Methods Three different land use types which consisted of walnut plantation, eucalyptus plantation and abandoned burned area were selected, then 15 traits of soil samples from three land use types were assayed and statistically analyzed, which are pH value (pH), organic matter (OM), total nitrogen (TN), hydrolyzable nitrogen (HN), total phosphorus (TP), available phosphorus (AP), total potassium (TK), available potassium (AK), total calcium (TCa), total magnesium (TMg), total manganese (TMn), total sulfur (TS), total copper (TCu), total zinc (TZn), ratio of carbon to nitrogen(C/N). Meanwhile, soil fertility of three land use types was evaluated according to nutrients rank standards.

Results Only soil TCu contents were not significantly different among three land use types. The significant level of soil HN and AK contents were 0.05, and the significant level of the other soil element contents, pH and C/N even reached 0.01. Most soil nutrient contents of all three land use types can be attributed to suitable or higher rank except for soil AP contents in abandoned area which can only be attributed to extremely scarce.

Conclusion The present results demonstrated that restoration effects on burned area differed significantly among these three land use types.