{"title":"Effects of erosion-induced degradation on subsequent soil erosion and sediment sorting of a cultivated black soil under simulated heavy rainstorm","authors":"Yang Yang, Ying Wang, Xinyi Chen, Yingna Liu","doi":"10.1002/ldr.5218","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Soil erosion is a major cause of soil degradation, leading to soil quality deterioration. The resulting alternation of soil properties would in turn change the soil's responses in subsequent soil erosion events later, which, however, has rarely been studied. The objective was to examine the effects of such erosion-induced degradation on subsequent soil erosion and sediment size distribution of a cultivated black soil under heavy rainstorms. The plough layers of the black soil that had suffered from 0, 10, 30, 50, and 70 years of soil erosion in northeast China were artificially constructed, corresponding to five erosional degradation levels of none, slight, moderate, severe, and very severe degradations, successively. A simulated heavy rainfall at the 75 mm h<sup>−1</sup> intensity was performed, and runoff and sediment samples were collected every 6 min and analyzed for particle size distribution. Owing to the increasingly coarse source soil and thereby enhanced hydraulic conductivity, the steady-state runoff rate decreased from 1.06 to 0.77 mm min<sup>−1</sup>, as the degradation level increased from none to very severe degradation. However, the fine-textured noneroded soil had a better water retention capacity, which decreased runoff, especially at the beginning of the rainfall. The maximum runoff in total, that is, 103.61 mm, was consequently observed in the slightly degraded soil. The sediment concentrations and yields here were also significantly greater than those of the other treatments (<i>p</i> <0.01), suggesting a relatively higher soil erodibility. Sediment sorting was observed at each treatment especially during the first half of the rainfall, except for the slightly eroded soil where the elevated runoff was believed sufficient to equally transport different-sized particles. The clay particles were enriched in the sediments eroded from the non- and moderately degraded soils, as the corresponding enrichment ratios (<i>ER</i>s) were typically above 1. Whereas for the severely and very severely degraded soils, <i>ER</i>s were around 0.5, indicating considerable depletion of these fine particles. These results demonstrate the diverse erosional responses of the soils exhibiting varying erosion-induced degradation levels and hold important implications for agricultural management and soil and water conservation in the black soil region of northeast China as well as other similar regions.</p>","PeriodicalId":203,"journal":{"name":"Land Degradation & Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Land Degradation & Development","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ldr.5218","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Soil erosion is a major cause of soil degradation, leading to soil quality deterioration. The resulting alternation of soil properties would in turn change the soil's responses in subsequent soil erosion events later, which, however, has rarely been studied. The objective was to examine the effects of such erosion-induced degradation on subsequent soil erosion and sediment size distribution of a cultivated black soil under heavy rainstorms. The plough layers of the black soil that had suffered from 0, 10, 30, 50, and 70 years of soil erosion in northeast China were artificially constructed, corresponding to five erosional degradation levels of none, slight, moderate, severe, and very severe degradations, successively. A simulated heavy rainfall at the 75 mm h−1 intensity was performed, and runoff and sediment samples were collected every 6 min and analyzed for particle size distribution. Owing to the increasingly coarse source soil and thereby enhanced hydraulic conductivity, the steady-state runoff rate decreased from 1.06 to 0.77 mm min−1, as the degradation level increased from none to very severe degradation. However, the fine-textured noneroded soil had a better water retention capacity, which decreased runoff, especially at the beginning of the rainfall. The maximum runoff in total, that is, 103.61 mm, was consequently observed in the slightly degraded soil. The sediment concentrations and yields here were also significantly greater than those of the other treatments (p <0.01), suggesting a relatively higher soil erodibility. Sediment sorting was observed at each treatment especially during the first half of the rainfall, except for the slightly eroded soil where the elevated runoff was believed sufficient to equally transport different-sized particles. The clay particles were enriched in the sediments eroded from the non- and moderately degraded soils, as the corresponding enrichment ratios (ERs) were typically above 1. Whereas for the severely and very severely degraded soils, ERs were around 0.5, indicating considerable depletion of these fine particles. These results demonstrate the diverse erosional responses of the soils exhibiting varying erosion-induced degradation levels and hold important implications for agricultural management and soil and water conservation in the black soil region of northeast China as well as other similar regions.
期刊介绍:
Land Degradation & Development is an international journal which seeks to promote rational study of the recognition, monitoring, control and rehabilitation of degradation in terrestrial environments. The journal focuses on:
- what land degradation is;
- what causes land degradation;
- the impacts of land degradation
- the scale of land degradation;
- the history, current status or future trends of land degradation;
- avoidance, mitigation and control of land degradation;
- remedial actions to rehabilitate or restore degraded land;
- sustainable land management.