Variation in soil physico-chemical properties in dry tropics: Effect of land-use change

Abstract

In the dry tropics, the soil properties especially the soil quality and function affected significantly due to the land-use change. In the present study, the impact of land-use change involving natural forest (NF), degraded forest (DF), Jatropha plantation (JP) and agroecosystem (AG) was analyzed on the potential of soil quality in terms of the concentration of soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), pH, bulk density (BD), porosity (PO) and water holding capacity (WHC). Concentration of SOC, TN, PO and WHC was found to be maximum in NF (0.85 %, 0.132 %, 56.89 and 46.37 %) followed in decreasing order by JP (0.66 %, 0.078 %, 54.33 % and 42.63 %), DF (0.48 %, 0.068 %, 52.49 % and 40.64 %) and minimum in AG (0.34 %, 0.063 %, 47.87 % and 38.34 %). The plantation of Jatropha curcas on a patch of DF for 12 years improves the soil physico-chemical properties over DF and AG. It can be suggested that the JP on degraded land may be crucial strategy for the restoration of degraded land by improving soil quality and function in dry tropics.