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Impact of land use changes on soil quality and species diversity in the Vindhyan dry tropical region of India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2020

Rajani Srivastava Open the ORCID record for Rajani Srivastava [Opens in a new window] ,
Monalisha Mohapatra  and
Ashish Latare
Rajani Srivastava*
Affiliation:
Environmental Science (Environmental Technology), Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, RGSC, Banaras Hindu University, Mirzapur, 231001, India
Monalisha Mohapatra
Affiliation:
Environmental Science (Environmental Technology), Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, RGSC, Banaras Hindu University, Mirzapur, 231001, India
Ashish Latare
Affiliation:
Department of Soil Science, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, RGSC, Banaras Hindu University, Mirzapur, 231001, India
*
*Author for correspondence: Rajani Srivastava, Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

Conversion of forest land into different land use types is the primary cause of degradation of land resources, which in turn alters nutrient and carbon cycles, land productivity and diversity of species. There is scarcity of information about land-use changes (LUC) and their effect on relationship of soil quality and species diversity at landscape level in the Vindhyan dry tropical region. We evaluated the impact of land-use changes on soil physicochemical quality and the influence of these qualities on species diversity and organic matter accumulation. We also established the relationship between soil quality indicators and species diversity parameters. To examine impact of LUC, we did a detailed field survey and analysed selected soil quality indicators by standard methods. We examined species diversity parameters and established the relationship between soil quality and species diversity. We found that there is a marked decline in soil porosity, water-holding capacity and soil moisture due to LUC. Conversion from forest land (FL) to savanna land (SL) resulted in soil organic carbon decreasing by ∼40–50%. The decrease was more pronounced in cultivated land (CL) and degraded land (DL) (65–70% and 83–85%, respectively). In the case of total N, maximum decrease in total N of 83–87% was noted in DL as compared with FL. The poor soil quality indicators in degraded and agricultural land can be explained by the interaction between the soil organic carbon and nitrogen loss with diversity loss. This study recommends that for management/restoration of land resources, planning strategies should consider the current landscape structure, with land-use planning.

Keywords

Land use changesoil organic carbonsoil quality indicatorsspecies diversitytropical forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , March 2020 , pp. 72 - 79
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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