• Cultivation effects on soil texture and fertility in an arid desert region of northwestern China

    分类: 地球科学 >> 地球科学史 提交时间: 2020-10-20 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》

    摘要: In arid desert regions of northwestern China, reclamation and subsequent irrigated cultivation have become effective ways to prevent desertification, expand arable croplands, and develop sustainable agricultural production. Improvement in soil texture and fertility is crucial to high soil quality and stable crop yield. However, knowledge on the long-term effects of the conversion of desert lands into arable croplands is very limited. To address this problem, we conducted this study in an arid desert region of northwestern China to understand the changes in soil physical-chemical properties after 0, 2, 5, 10, 17, and 24 years of cultivation. Our results showed that silt and clay contents at the 17-year-old sites increased 17.5 and 152.3 folds, respectively, compared with that at the 0-year-old sites. The soil aggregate size fraction and its stability exhibited an exponential growth trend with increasing cultivation ages, but no significant change was found for the proportion of soil macroaggregates (>5.00 mm) during the 17 years of cultivation. The soil organic carbon (SOC) content at the 24-year-old sites was 6.86 g/kg and increased 8.8 folds compared with that at the 0-year-old sites. The total (or available) nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contents showed significant increasing trends and reached higher values after 17 (or 24) years of cultivation. Changes in soil physical-chemical properties successively experienced slow, rapid, and stable development stages, but some key properties (such as soil aggregate stability and SOC) were still too low to meet the sustainable agricultural production. The results of this long-term study indicated that reasonable agricultural management, such as expanding no-tillage land area, returning straw to the fields, applying organic fertilizer, reducing chemical fertilizer application, and carrying out soil testing for formula fertilization, is urgently needed in arid desert regions.

  • Spatial-temporal characteristics of drought detected from meteorological data with high resolution in Shaanxi Province, China

    分类: 地球科学 >> 地球科学史 提交时间: 2020-10-20 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》

    摘要: The spatial pattern of meteorological factors cannot be accurately simulated by using observations from meteorological stations (OMS) that are distributed sparsely in complex terrain. It is expected that the spatial-temporal characteristics of drought in regions with complex terrain can be better represented by meteorological data with the high spatial-temporal resolution and accuracy. In this study, Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) calculated with meteorological factors extracted from ITPCAS (China Meteorological Forcing Dataset produced by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences) was applied to identify the spatial-temporal characteristics of drought in Shaanxi Province of China, during the period of 1979–2016. Drought areas detected by SPEI calculated with data from ITPCAS (SPEI-ITPCAS) on the seasonal scale were validated by historical drought records from the Chinese Meteorological Disaster Canon-Shaanxi, and compared with drought areas detected by SPEI calculated with data from OMS (SPEI-OMS). Drought intensity, trend and temporal ranges for mutations of SPEI-ITPCAS were analyzed by using the cumulative drought intensity (CDI) index and the Mann-Kendall test. The results indicated that drought areas detected from SPEI-ITPCAS were closer to the historical drought records than those detected from SPEI-OMS. Severe and exceptional drought events with SPEI-ITPCAS lower than –1.0 occurred most frequently in summer, followed by spring. There was a general drying trend in spring and summer in Shaanxi Province and a significant wetting trend in autumn and winter in northern Shaanxi Province. On seasonal and annual scales, the regional and temporal ranges for mutations of SPEI-ITPCAS were different and most mutations occurred before the year 1990 in most regions of Shaanxi Province. The results reflect the response of different regions of Shaanxi Province to climate change, which will help to manage regional water resources.