Influence of land-use pattern on soil quality in a steeply sloped tropical mountainous region, India

• Published in: Archiv für Acker- und Pflanzenbau und Bodenkunde Vol. 68; no. 6; pp. 852 - 872
• Main Authors: Yinga, Ovung Etsoshan, Kumar, Kewat Sanjay, Chowlani, Manpoong, Tripathi, Shri Kant, Khanduri, Vinod Prasad, Singh, Sudhir Kumar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 12-05-2022; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Agricultural practices; Animal manures; Bulk density; Carbon; Cations; Clay soils; Conservation tillage; Integration; Land use; Land-use types; Livestock; Microorganisms; Mixed cropping; Mountainous areas; Nitrogen; Organic carbon; Organic phosphorus; Organic soils; PCA; Phosphorus; Sandy soils; slope; Soil analysis; Soil conservation; soil erosion; Soil fertility; Soil quality; soil quality index; sustainability; Terracing; Tillage; Tropical environments
• ISSN: 0365-0340; 1476-3567
• DOI: 10.1080/03650340.2020.1858478

The study investigates the effect of various existing hill land-use practices on soil quality. The land-use types selected for the analysis was based on common land-use types practice in the area. Soil samples were collected from different land-use types and analysed for bulk density (BD), clay, sand, silt content, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen (MBC and MBN), and exchangeable cations. Further, the soil fertility index, soil evaluation factor and Principal Component (PC) Analysis suggested that PC1 accounts maximum variance (41.6%) followed by PC2 (19.7%), PC3 (13.5%), PC4 (12.4%) and PC5 has the least variance (10.4%). Weighted soil quality index (SQI
w
) was computed based on SQI
w.
The majority of land-use samples showed a moderate quality of soil except for samples of current jhum (CJ) (SQI
w
 = 0.75) which is in the good category. Almost all the soil parameters except BD have a higher concentration in the settled agricultural farm owing to the integration of sustainable approaches (viz., integration of livestock manure, conservation tillage, mixed cropping and terracing). The present study indicates that long term settled sustainable land-uses agricultural practices are the key to maintain soil organic carbon, and soil health in the sloping hilly region of tropics.