The impact of land use and cover change on soil organic carbon and total nitrogen storage in the Heihe River Basin: A meta-analysis

doi:10.1007/s11442-019-1678-y

Abstract

Abstract:

Land use and cover change (LUCC) is an important indicator of the human-earth system under climate/environmental change, which also serves as a key impact factor of carbon balance, and a major source/sink of soil carbon cycles. The Heihe River Basin (HRB) is known as a typical ecologically fragile area in the arid/semi-arid regions of northwestern China, which makes it more sensitive to the LUCC. However, its sensitivity varies in a broad range of controlling factors, such as soil layers, LUCCs and calculation methods (e.g. the fixed depth method, FD, and the equivalent mass method, ESM). In this study, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the response of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) storage to the LUCC as well as method bias based on 383 sets of SOC data and 148 sets of TN data from the HRB. We first evaluated the calculation methods and found that based on the FD method, the LUCC caused SOC and TN storage to decrease by 17.39% and 14.27%, respectively; while the losses estimated using the ESM method were 19.31% and 18.52%, respectively. The deviations between two methods were mainly due to the fact that the FD method ignores the heterogeneity of soil bulk density (BD), which may underestimate the results subsequently. We then analyzed the response of SOC and TN storage to various types of the LUCC. In particular, when woodland and grassland were converted into cultivated land or other land types, SOC and TN suffered from heavy losses, while other LUCCs had minor influences. Finally, we showed that increasing the depth of the soil layers would reduce the losses of SOC and TN storage. In summary, we identified a series of controlling factors (e.g. soil layer, the LUCC and calculation method) to evaluate the impact of the LUCC on SOC and TN storage in the HRB, which should be considered in future research.

Key words: Heihe River Basin, LUCC, meta-analysis, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen

TONG Jinhui, HU Jinhua, LU Zheng, SUN Haoran, YANG Xiaofan. The impact of land use and cover change on soil organic carbon and total nitrogen storage in the Heihe River Basin: A meta-analysis[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2019, 29(9): 1578-1594.

Figures/Tables 10

Table 1

Sources and conditions of the dataset used in this study"

Number	Author	Year	Data points		Journal
Number	Author	Year	SOC	TN	Journal
1	Cao J J, Shang Z H, Guo R Y et al.	2011	4	4	Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment
2	Chang Z Q, Pei W, Feng Q et al.	2011	6	6	Mountain Research
3	Gao H N, Li C X, Sun X M et al.	2016	6	0	Acta Prataculturae Sinica
4	Jiang P, Cheng L, Li M et al.	2015	4	4	Science of the Total Environment
5	Li D, Gao G, Lü Y et al.	2016	18	0	Catena
6	Li F R, Feng Q, Liu J L et al.	2013	10	10	Ecosystems
7	Li Y L	2008	12	12	Lanzhou University (Master Thesis)
8	Lv Y H, Ma Z M, Zhao Z J et al.	2014	16	16	Environmental Management
9	Ma S H, Mou C C, Guo H et al.	2018	27	0	Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology
10	Ma Z M, Lv Y H, Sun F Y et al.	2013	15	15	Acta Ecologica Sinica
11	Niu R X, Zhao X Y, Liu J L et al.	2013	16	0	Polish Journal of Ecology
12	Qin J H, Zhang Y, Zhao Y C et al.	2013	32	0	Agricultural Research in the Arid Areas
13	Qin J H, Zhang Y, Zhao Y C et al.	2014	18	0	Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology
14	Shang Z, Cao J, Guo R et al.	2012	1	2	Journal of Soils & Sediments
15	Su Y Z, Yang R, Yang X et al.	2012	8	8	Scientia Agricultura Sinica
16	Su Y Z, Liu W J, Yang R et al.	2009	12	10	Acta Ecologica Sinica
17	Su Y H	2007	6	8	Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources (Doctoral Dissertation)
18	Sun M M, Wang X F, Ma M G et al.	2016	24	0	Acta Pedologica Sinica
19	Wang C, Zhao C Y, Xu Z L et al.	2013	9	0	Journal of Arid Land
20	Wang F, Xiao H L, Su Y Z et al.	2010	2	6	Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment
21	Wang G, Ma H, Qian J et al.	2010	12	0	Soil Use and Management
22	Wang G, Ma H, Qian J et al.	2012	6	6	Journal of Desert Research
23	Wang F, Meng H F, Hou D M et al.	2015	36	0	Pratacultural Science
24	Wang F, Xiao H L, Su Y Z et al.	2011	1	1	Journal of Desert Research
25	Yong Z S	2007	9	0	Soil and Tillage Research
26	Zhao R F, Zhang L H, Zhao H L et al.	2013	8	8	Scientia Geographica Sinica
27	Zhang J H, Li G D, Nan Z R	2012	18	30	Acta Ecologica Sinica
28	Zhang J H, Li G D, Nan Z R	2012	15	0	Journal of Natural Resources
29	Zhang J H, Li G D, Wang Y S	2012	2	2	Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology
30	Zhao J M, Liu C Z, Zhang D G	2012	21	0	Agricultural Research in the Arid Areas
31	Zhu P, Chen R S, Song Y X et al.	2017	9	0	Acta Ecologica Sinica

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