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Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important component in agricultural soil, and its stock is a major part of global carbon stocks. Estimating the SOC distribution and storage is important for improving soil quality and SOC sequestration. This study evaluated the SOC distribution different land uses and estimated the SOC storage by classifying the study area by land use in a small watershed on the Loess...
Few studies have been reported on the characteristics of dust particles deposited in arid regions of the Middle East. The objective of this study was to identify the variations in physical, chemical, and mineralogical composition of dust particles deposited along an elevational transect lying between central Iran and the Zagros Mountains in the west. Dust samples were collected at 12 localities during...
Organic and inorganic soil amendments are commonly added to soil for improving its physical and chemical characteristics which promote plant growth. Although many inorganic amendments are extensively used for this purpose, diatomite (DE) is not commonly used. This study was conducted to determine effects of diatomite applications (10, 20, and 30% v/v) on physical characteristics of soils with different...
The motivation for this article results from the fact that conceptual soil maps show oftentimes inaccuracies with regard to soil unit boundaries or misfits between original paper and actual soil-related information. Using the example of a German conceptual soil map (CSM), we introduce a procedure which could be considered as a framework for testing the terrain-related plausibility applied within a...
Charcoal fragments in soils are useful to reconstruct past vegetation because the level of preservation is often good enough to determine the tree genus. All forest ecosystems have the potential to burn as a result of naturally occurring or human-induced fires. Forest fires are coupled to climate and are a not-negligible factor of pedogenesis in Mediterranean areas, where they occur frequently. Furthermore,...
Logging operation leads to increased runoff and soil loss on skid trails. This study was conducted to evaluate the appropriate distance among water diversions in skid trails. Surface runoff and soil loss were studied on skid trails in Nav district (North of Iran) after each rainfall event. Two skid trails were selected in this study. Two levels of slope (10, 31%) and three distances among water diversions...
Desertification has been widely treated as one of the major environmental hazards in the world by scientific communities and the public. Monitoring the dynamics and causes of desertification is essential to provide important instruction for desertification control strategies and rational planning of land use in arid and semi-arid areas. In order to assess temporal–spatial variability of desertification...
Water erosion is a very dynamic process with direct and indirect consequences on ecosystem functioning. While the processes of sediment (SED) and soil organic carbon (SOC) detachment and transport are well recognized, it is however difficult to assess and interpret their impact on SED and SOC detachment, transport and sedimentation within a given landscape. In this study of a tropical area of the...
This work investigated the effects of land cover and land-use change (LUC) on the ability of a soil to store carbon (C) and reduce carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, in a Mediterranean area. Using a paired-site approach, we estimated the effect of land-cover change on the C stock from 1972 to 2008 in a natural reserve (Grotta di Santa Ninfa) in western Sicily. We selected 15 paired sites representative...
We examined runoff and sediment transport associated with large-scale construction projects in Fujian Province, China. Six experimental plots, comprised of four plot types, were designed to mimic typical conditions immediately following disturbance. It was found that natural vegetative cover reduces both runoff and erosion by approximately 36 and 7457 times over bare ground, and 16 and 1801 times...
The Roman Period is considered a crucial phase in the evolution of Holocene landscapes, due to the coincidence of major climatic, environmental, economic and cultural changes. However, there is still debate as to the regional expression of these changes, and to the mechanisms involved, particularly in the topographically and climatically complex region of the Mediterranean. In order to improve our...
The need for more agricultural areas stemming from population pressure has been contributing to the increased forest and grassland-to-agricultural areas conversion in recent years in the upper Mara River Basin, Kenya. The deforestation of the Mau forest and settlement on hydrological sensitive areas of the watershed along with poor soil and water conservation practices have caused the high level of...
The aim of this study was to investigate sedimentary processes in a discontinuous gully system, and to establish how they impacted upon overland flow and erosion in the short-term, while also considering their impact on long-term landscape connectivity. This manuscript documents the effect that a series of discontinuous gullies, located in the semi-arid Karoo (South Africa), had on local valley morphology...
This study investigated the effects of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) plantations on surface soil properties in eroded sand loam (SL) soils. Two land use types were selected in the semi-humid region of Artvin, Turkey: a black locust plantation area (BLP) and an adjacent non-managed site (NMS) (control site). The study used a randomized complete block design with four replications in both experimental...
When overland flow concentrates rill and gully channels can be formed if a series of thresholds are exceeded. These thresholds are more or less explicitly linked to the erosion resistance of the topsoil. Moreover, flow velocity and channel width depend on total flow discharge. More recently also bed roughness in eroding channels has been attributed to the eroding effect of flow discharge while channel...
A reconstruction of land use changes and the implications thereof for landslide occurrence on critical slopes of Mount Elgon in Eastern Uganda were undertaken. Aerial photographs taken in 1960 formed the benchmark for the analysis of respective land use changes between 1995 and 2006, using 30m Landsat TM and 20m SPOT MS images. Landslide sites were mapped using a MobileMapper, and terrain parameters...
Four sediment cores were sampled from Lake Arari, located on Marajó Island at the mouth of the Amazon River. The island's vegetation cover is composed mainly of Amazon coastal forest, herbaceous and varzea vegetation. The integration of data on sedimentary structures, pollen, carbon and nitrogen isotope records, C/N ratios and radiocarbon ages allowed the identification of changes in vegetation and...
The transportability of sediment by runoff and its potential for subsequent deposition is dependent on the size and distribution of the transported material and the sediment concentration. The size distribution of the eroded sediment is also expected to vary depending on which erosion process is predominant. This study discusses the results of laboratory analysis to evaluate the effect of rainfall...
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