The effects of land use change
on soil properties and organic
carbon at
Dagdami river catchment in Turkey
Ceyhun Gol*
Watershed Management
Department, Faculty of Forestry, University
of Cankiri Karatekin - 18200, Cankiri, Turkey
(Received: May 09, 2008; Revised
received: September
10, 2008; Accepted: October 11, 2008)
Abstract: This research was carried out in
Dagdami river catchment located in the highlands of the Black sea region of Turkey. The
objective of this study was to investigate the effects of representative
land-use and land-cover types of largely deforested areas of Black
sea region on soil properties. We measured these effects by
quantifying some soil analyses were done on soil samples were taken at two
depths (0-5 and 5-15 cm) and two aspects (N and S). According to the
results of statistical analysis, satured hydraulic conductivity (Ksat),
bulk density (BD), water stable aggregates (WSA), soil organic matter (SOM),
soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen significantly change with land use
type and aspect. Results have shown significantly higher values of saturated
hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) in natural forest top soil (82.4 cm3.h-1
on average) compared to grasslands soils (8.4 cm3 h-1)
and hazelnut garden soils (11.5 cm3 h-1) and corn field
soils (30.0 cm3.h-1). It was determined that WSA was
greater in the pasture and forest soils than in cultivated soils. In addition,
Ksat was found the highest value in the forest soils at all aspects
while, SOM and SOC of forest soils are higher than other land use types. On the
other hand, amount of SOM and SOC of soils of grassland, hazelnut garden and
corn field are low level and close to each other. Soils under hazelnut garden
(1.1 g cm-3) and grassland (1.1 g cm-3) have higher bulk
density than the adjacent soils under forests (0.7 g cm-3) and corn
field (1.0 g cm-3) for two different aspects. Furthermore, after
long term continuous cultivation of the natural forest soil, it was determined
that some physical and chemical characteristics of it has
been significantly changed.
Key
words: Soil properties, Land
use change, Long-term cultivation, Deforestation
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