Abstract
Urban soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in urban ecosystem services. Rapid urbanization and anthropogenic disturbances have created complex and dynamic land-use patterns and heterogeneous urban landscapes, however, the impact of these patterns on the spatial distribution of soil organic carbon density (DSOC) remains unclear. This study investigated SOC using a spatial sampling method from 213 sites in Xi'an City Ring Expressway, China. The results showed that the DSOC ranged from 1.79 to 4.93 kg m−2, with a mean of 3.31 kg m−2, and the value of Dsoc was decreased from city center toward suburb with a significant spatial heterogeneity. The DSOC varied with land-use types, being higher in parks, transportation, commercial, and public lands than in industrial, agricultural, parking, and construction lands. The Dsoc was positively related to population density, normalized difference impervious surface index, road density, and landscape shape index, while negatively to aggregation index and patch richness density. Overall, the urbanization of Xi’an City has strongly affected the soil C stocks, and the capacity of urban soils to store C was sustainable. These findings lays a scientific foundation for future soil carbon management in urban development.
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The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.
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The statistical analyses were done on Microsoft Excel (version 2016), SPSS (version 16.0), GS + (version 10.0), Fragstats (version 4.2). The spatial distribution maps were generated on GIS (ESRI® ArcMap™ 10.2) platform. Spearman’s rank correlation and PCA were conducted using the Tutools platform (http://www.cloudtutu.com).
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This study was funded by the Xi 'an Jingwei Wetland Nature Reserve comprehensive scientific investigation project.
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ZF, JW and SZ conceived the review, drafted, and finalized the manuscript. WX, XF, QY, SZ, FZ and KL helped to improve the draft by providing useful suggestions and information. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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Fang, Z., Zhou, S., Zhang, S. et al. Spatial distribution and influencing factors of urban soil organic carbon stocks in Xi'an City, China. Urban Ecosyst 26, 677–688 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-022-01316-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-022-01316-6