The effects of land use change on soil properties and organic carbon at Dagdami river catchment in Turkey.

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.