Effects of drought stress on agriculture soil

• Published in: Natural hazards (Dordrecht) Vol. 75; no. 2; pp. 1997 - 2011
• Main Authors: Geng, S. M., Yan, D. H., Zhang, T. X., Weng, B. S., Zhang, Z. B., Qin, T. L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-01-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural ecosystems; Agriculture; Biomass; Carbon; Civil Engineering; Drought; Droughts; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Ecosystems; Environmental Management; Extreme drought; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Hydrogeology; Microorganisms; Moisture content; Natural Hazards; Organic carbon; Original Paper; Rhizosphere; Soil (material); Soil degradation; Soils; Stress analysis; Water content; Zea mays; Microbial biomass carbon; Productivity; Soil ecosystem; Sustainability; Rainstorm; Extreme drought
• ISSN: 0921-030X; 1573-0840
• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-014-1409-8

Droughts often affect the soil ecosystem directly. To address this question, a series of prototype observation experiments were designed in this study. The objective of this study was to identify changing tendencies of microbial biomass carbon content and the proportion of microbial biomass carbon in soil organic carbon under different drought conditions. All the soil samples were collected from experiments fields about 10 cm far away from the rhizosphere of the maize, and the content of microbial biomass carbon was selected as indicator for identifying effects of extreme drought on agriculture soil ecosystem. The results showed that the optimum mass water content of soil for microbial biomass carbon was 19.5 % and the demarcation point of microbial biomass carbon to drought was 14.3 %, which could be used to demonstrate alters and degradation of soil ecosystem and the irrigation requirement of crops. Meanwhile, sustainability of different drought soil ecosystems was also evaluated after rainstorm with rehabilitation. The results suggested that soil ecosystem could recover after interfered by moderate drought, and its tolerance to drought, as well as its function and activity was improved. Soil system could not adapt to severe drought stress, could barely recover and restore from extreme drought within a few days, and its function and structure were also damaged. From this view, we could conclude that mass water content of soil should be kept above 10 % to avoid soil system function and structure being destroyed. Nevertheless, these findings suggested that soil ecosystem should be watered when mass water content was lower than 14.3 %, which provided reference for improving the soil to increase the grain output.