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Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping

BACKGROUND: Crude flats in delta areas are often saline–alkaline and unsuitable for agricultural cropping. In the 1990s, people residing in the Yellow River delta constructed terraces on the flats for agricultural development. Herein, we investigated environmental changes resulting from this agricul...

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Autores principales: He, Dongxiao, Chu, Jianmin, Yang, Hongxiao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8590797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34824918
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12469
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author He, Dongxiao
Chu, Jianmin
Yang, Hongxiao
author_facet He, Dongxiao
Chu, Jianmin
Yang, Hongxiao
author_sort He, Dongxiao
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Crude flats in delta areas are often saline–alkaline and unsuitable for agricultural cropping. In the 1990s, people residing in the Yellow River delta constructed terraces on the flats for agricultural development. Herein, we investigated environmental changes resulting from this agricultural development and evaluated whether the current land use is effective and sustainable. METHODS: We sampled soil and weeds from croplands, terrace slopes, and crude flats within the delta terrace landscape. The measured soil properties included soil salinity, pH, total N, total P, and organic matter in different lands and soil layers: 0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm. The surveyed weed characteristics were the biomass of roots and rhizomes, species composition, life form, cover and height. These indices were statistically verified by different land types and soil layers. RESULTS: Soil salinity in the terrace crop lands was found to have reduced to <4 g·kg(−1), whereas in the crude flats, remained >6 g·kg(−1). Soil pH in the terrace croplands was surprisingly increased to >9 ; meanwhile, organic matter content decreased drastically, which is significantly different from that observed in the case of terrace slopes and crude flats. Total N and P content in the terrace crop lands were seemingly unchanged on averages but at the depths >20 cm, they reduced unavoidably. Plant underground organs were relatively scarcer in the croplands than in the other lands. Weeds grew well on the terrace slopes but were insufficient in the croplands. Overall, terrace construction is effective for developing coastal saline flats for agricultural use, but the traditional land use in the Yellow River delta has caused chronic soil degradation that is against a sustainable productive industry.
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spelling pubmed-85907972021-11-24 Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping He, Dongxiao Chu, Jianmin Yang, Hongxiao PeerJ Agricultural Science BACKGROUND: Crude flats in delta areas are often saline–alkaline and unsuitable for agricultural cropping. In the 1990s, people residing in the Yellow River delta constructed terraces on the flats for agricultural development. Herein, we investigated environmental changes resulting from this agricultural development and evaluated whether the current land use is effective and sustainable. METHODS: We sampled soil and weeds from croplands, terrace slopes, and crude flats within the delta terrace landscape. The measured soil properties included soil salinity, pH, total N, total P, and organic matter in different lands and soil layers: 0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm. The surveyed weed characteristics were the biomass of roots and rhizomes, species composition, life form, cover and height. These indices were statistically verified by different land types and soil layers. RESULTS: Soil salinity in the terrace crop lands was found to have reduced to <4 g·kg(−1), whereas in the crude flats, remained >6 g·kg(−1). Soil pH in the terrace croplands was surprisingly increased to >9 ; meanwhile, organic matter content decreased drastically, which is significantly different from that observed in the case of terrace slopes and crude flats. Total N and P content in the terrace crop lands were seemingly unchanged on averages but at the depths >20 cm, they reduced unavoidably. Plant underground organs were relatively scarcer in the croplands than in the other lands. Weeds grew well on the terrace slopes but were insufficient in the croplands. Overall, terrace construction is effective for developing coastal saline flats for agricultural use, but the traditional land use in the Yellow River delta has caused chronic soil degradation that is against a sustainable productive industry. PeerJ Inc. 2021-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8590797/ /pubmed/34824918 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12469 Text en © 2021 He et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Agricultural Science
He, Dongxiao
Chu, Jianmin
Yang, Hongxiao
Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title_full Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title_fullStr Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title_full_unstemmed Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title_short Environmental changes in Yellow River Delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
title_sort environmental changes in yellow river delta with terrace construction and agricultural cropping
topic Agricultural Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8590797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34824918
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12469
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AT yanghongxiao environmentalchangesinyellowriverdeltawithterraceconstructionandagriculturalcropping