Publication Date:
2014-12-07
Description:
ABSTRACT Turkey's forests have been continuously facing conversion into both agriculture and pasturelands causing not only degradation and fragmentation of forested lands but also negative changes in soil properties that have not been thoroughly investigated. In order to determine possible changes in some physical and hydro-physical soil parameters along with dispersion ratio between natural coppice forests and the neighboring forest-to-grassland converted areas, a foothill of Mount Sacinka in Artvin was chosen as a research area. Besides land use, possible effects of elevation change on soil properties due to the mountainous and moderately steep landscape of the region was also taken into consideration. The soil samples were analyzed for soil texture, permeability, field capacity, bulk density, organic matter, pH and dispersion ratio. The results indicated that while permeability (43.05 mm/hr in forest, 18.82 mm/hr in pasture), field capacity (43.45% in forest, 38.08% in pasture) and organic matter (6.36% in forest, 5.34% in pasture) values turned out to be higher in forest soils, bulk density (0.91 gr/cm 3 in forest, 1.06 gr/cm 3 in pasture) and pH (5.89 in forest, 6.55 in pasture) values were low in grassland soils, meaning that conversion has negative effects on soil properties. Additionally, the mean dispersion ratios of 27.55% and 33.58% for forest and pastureland soils, respectively, indicated soil erosion problems in both land uses. In addition, as for elevation effect, especially forest soils showed better characteristics at higher elevations with high permeability, field capacity and organic matter and low pH and dispersion ratio. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Print ISSN:
1085-3278
Electronic ISSN:
1099-145X
Topics:
Geography
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Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
