Search results for " SOIL"

Impact of woody encroachment on soil organic carbon and nitrogen in abandoned agricultural lands along a rainfall gradient in Italy

2011

Land use changes represent one of the most important components of global environmental change andhave a strong influence on carbon cycling. As a consequence of changes in economy during the last century, areas of marginal agriculture have been abandoned leading to secondary successions. The encroachment of woody plants into grasslands, pastures and croplands is generally thought to increase the carbon stored in these ecosystems even though there are evidences for a decrease in soil carbon stocks after land use change. In this paper, we investigate the effects of woody plant invasion on soil carbon and nitrogen stocks along a precipitation gradient (200–2,500 mm) using original data from pa…

Soil chemical and biochemical properties of a salt-marsh alluvial Spanish area after long-term reclamation

2009

Marisma, one of the largest salt-marsh alluvial areas in SW Spain, has been reclaimed since 1970 by artificial drainage and amendment with phosphogypsum (PG) so as to reduce Na+ saturation. Within the reclaimed area, two 250- × 20-m plots were treated as follows: (1) amendment with 25 Mg/ha of PG every 2 to 3 years between 1979 and 2003 (plot PY); (2) like PY but PG treatment stopped after 1997 (plot DR). A contiguous virgin Marisma salt-marsh plot (MV), neither drained nor amended, was the control. In MV, soil microbial biomass C, most enzyme activities and total organic C content were much greater than in PY and DR soils, despite the salinity stress. The decrease in soil organic matter co…

Volcanic soil-rainwater interaction at Mount Etna, Sicily. Preliminary Results

2008

Soil erosion assessment on tillage and alternative soil managements in a Sicilian vineyard

2011

Mediterranean crops favour high erosion rates. Vineyards use to reach the highest soil and water losses due to the lack of vegetation cover. A topographical approach by means of the use of vineyards poles as fixed reference point as erosion markers allowed to quantify high and non-sustainable soil erosion rates on the Sicilian vineyards during 9 years. In order to develop strategies to control the soil losses, seven land management were selected and applied in a typical blanc wine grape vineyard located in southwestern Sicily. Comparable plots were managed traditionally using conventional tillage and alternatively using various cover crops: 1) Vicia faba; 2) Vicia faba and Vicia sativa; 3) …

The influence of soil quality on life standard in Tutova Hills

2014

Tutova hills is a Romanian area called the poverty pole of the European Union. The soil quality has a high influence on the standard of life of this population living in this conditions.

Efectos de la intensidad del fuego sobre las propiedades químicas del suelo y sus consecuencias en los procesos de erosión hídrica : Incendios experi…

1999

A comprehensive analysis of Universal Soil Loss Equation-based models at the Sparacia experimental area

2020

Improving Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE)‐based models has large interest because simple and reliable analytical tools are necessary in the perspective of a sustainable land management. At first, in this paper, a general definition of the event rainfall‐ runoff erosivity factor for the USLE‐based models, REFₑ = (QR)ᵇ¹(EI₃₀)ᵇ², in which QR is the event runoff coefficient, EI₃₀ is the single‐storm erosion index, and b₁ and b₂ are coefficients, was introduced. The rainfall‐runoff erosivity factors of the USLE (b₁ = 0 and b₂ = 1), USLE‐M (b₁ = b₂ = 1), USLE‐MB (b₁ ≠ 1 and b₂ = 1), USLE‐MR (b₁ = 1 and b₂ ≠ 1), USLE‐MM (b₁ = b₂ ≠ 1), and USLE‐M2 (b₁ ≠ b₂ ≠ 1) can be defined using REFₑ. Then t…

Soil erosion assessment and control in Northeast Wollega, Ethiopia

2018

Soil erosion is the main driver of land degradation in Ethiopia, and in the whole region of East Africa. This study was conducted at the Northeast Wollega in West Ethiopia to estimate the soil losses by means of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The purpose of this paper is to identify erosion spot areas and target locations for appropriate development of soil and water conservation measures. Fieldwork and household survey were conducted to identify major determinants of soil erosion control. Six principal factors were used to calculate soil loss per year, such as rainfallerosivity, soil erodiblity, slope length, slope steepness, crop management and erosion-control practices…

The use of soil water retention curve models in analyzing slope stability in differently structured soils

2017

Abstract This study analyzes whether and at what rate the parameterization of the Soil Water Retention Curve (SWRC) affects the analysis of shallow slope stability for differently structured unsaturated soils. Advanced empirical or physically-based equations of SWRCs have been proposed in literature to describe soil systems characterized by the so-called bimodal porous domain. In unsaturated soils, SWRC affects the stability assessment in two ways. It influences the resistance properties in terms of shear strengths, which depend on the soil water suction; and it affects the hydrological process modeling (e.g. infiltration) directly influencing soil moisture patterns and indirectly influenci…

Reshaping the city ground-scape with vegetation

2011

Innovative Design Experiences based on soil shaping on urban spaces