[1]XIONG Hao-qin,DUAN Jin-yue,WANG Yan,et al.Effects of Biological Soil Crust on Water Infiltration and Redistribution in the Mu Us Sandland,Inner Mongolia,Northern China[J].Research of Soil and Water Conservation,2011,18(04):82-87.
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Research of Soil and Water Conservation[ISSN 1005-3409/CN 61-1272/P] Volume:
18
Number of periods:
2011 04
Page number:
82-87
Column:
Public date:
2011-08-20
- Title:
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Effects of Biological Soil Crust on Water Infiltration and Redistribution in the Mu Us Sandland,Inner Mongolia,Northern China
- Author(s):
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XIONG Hao-qin1, DUAN Jin-yue2, WANG Yan1, ZHANG Xin-shi3
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1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China;
2. Faculty of Architechtural Engineering, Kunming Metallurgy College, Kunming 650033, China;
3. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
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- Keywords:
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biological soil crust; infiltration; soil moisture; vegetation succession
- CLC:
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S152.7;S154
- DOI:
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- Abstract:
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In arid and semiarid environments, microbiotic soil crust on the soil surface plays the major role in ecosystem processes, particularly in soil water flows, and therefore, is very important for landscape structure and function. In this paper, we examined three grazing treatments such as continuous year-long livestock grazing (grazing), grazing excluded for 5 years (5-yr exclosure) and grazing excluded for 15 years (15-yr exclosure), the effects of soil crust on water infiltration and redistribution were analyzed. The water infiltration rate for both in 5-yr and 15-yr exclosures is as follows:bare areasoil with microbiotic crust, which showed that the presence of microbiotic soil crust reduced infiltration. The microbiotic soil crust cover had a significant negative influence on the infiltration for rainfall events (14.8 mm), restricting the infiltration depth to less than 40 cm and increasing soil moisture content just beneath the soil profile of 40 cm, whereas it was not as strong or clear for larger rainfall events. The high frequencies (84.6%) of small rainfall events (10 mm) in the Mu Us Sandland and the inhibition effect on rainfall infiltration caused by the microbiotic soil crust result in the decreased soil moisture in deeper soil layers, which makes deep-rooted subshrub Artemisia ordosica decline and facilitates shallow-rooted herbaceous species. These encouraging results imply that grazing exclusion may be efficient to reduce the existing Artemisia encroachment and facilitate the recovery toward the potential climax steppe grassland in the Mu Us Sandland.