Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
, Department of Soil Science and Engineering, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
2
Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz
3
Department of Soil Science and Engineering, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
4
Department of Biosystems Engineering, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
One of the challenges of recent centuries is food security resulting from population growth. Land management changes can adversely affect soil properties, leading to irreparable damage in the future. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effects of land use changes to improve land management practices. This study collected and analyzed 300 completely random samples from Fars province's four land uses: forest, agriculture, poor pasture, and strong pasture. The results showed that land use changes affected the studied properties. The highest organic matter (3.45%) and the mean weight diameter (2.2 mm) were obtained in the forest and agricultural land uses, respectively with good plant cover, which can be due to more input and less output of organic matter in these land uses. Also, in these lands, the pH of the soils has decreased due to the exudation of organic acids from the roots of the plants, and the highest pH value (8.39) was observed in the poor pasture land use. Bulk density was not significantly different among the studied land uses. However, in the poor pastures due to the destruction of aggregate and excessive livestock grazing, the apparent density was 5% higher than the other three land uses. Overall, as land use shifted from forest to strong pasture, the soil quality decreased due to the loss of plant cover in poor pastures. Therefore, consistent soil monitoring is essential for making appropriate decisions about the future of soil management against land use change.
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