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Influence of topography and land management on soil nutrients variability in Northeast China

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Abstract

It is well recognized that soil nutrient content varies across the landscape, but the nature and degree of that variability with respect to landscape position is still poorly understood and documented. Slope steepness and aspect, climate and land management are known to affect soil nutrient distribution in a field, but the relative and cumulative strengths of these effects are less well investigated. Four hundred and thirty-five topsoil samples collected from a typical Mollisol under intensive crop management in Northeast China were used to analyze the influence of landscape position, climate and land management on the spatial variability of soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). Both geo-statistics and traditional statistics were used to analyze the data, and significant spatial variability was found for SOM (22.5–86.6 g kg−1), TN (0.98–4.26 g kg−1) and TP (0.26–1.80 g kg−1). The distribution of all 3 nutrients was found to be influenced by human activity and by landscape. When both slope degree and slope aspect were considered, the results differed from when only aspect or steepness was considered independently. In a northern aspect, SOM and TN were significantly higher on slopes of 0–2% than on steeper slopes, in a south-eastern aspect they were significantly higher on slopes of 0–2, 2–3 and 3–4% than on slopes >4% and in a south-western aspect those nutrients on slopes of 2–4% were significantly higher than on slopes of >5%. Cross-slope tillage effectively increased SOM, TN and TP by 33.8, 23.3 and 22.4%, respectively compared to down-slope tillage, indicating the potential for adoption of a nutrient-retaining management practice in the Mollisol region of northeast China.

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Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the Project of Heilongjiang Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and National High-tech R&D National Natural Science Foundation Program of China for partial support of this research, under grant numbers Jc200718 and 2008AA10z212.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mollisols Agroecology, National Observation Station of Hailun Agroecology System, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 138 Haping Rd, Harbin, 150081, China

    Shaoliang Zhang, Xingyi Zhang & Xiaobing Liu

  2. Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Center, Agriculture Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, K1A 0C6, Canada

    Shaoliang Zhang & Ted Huffman

  3. Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Shaoliang Zhang

  4. College of Resource and Environment, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, People’s Republic of China

    Shaoliang Zhang

  5. Greenhouse & Processing Crops Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2585 County Road 20, Harrow, ON, N0R1G0, Canada

    Jingyi Yang

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  1. Shaoliang Zhang
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  2. Xingyi Zhang
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  3. Ted Huffman
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  4. Xiaobing Liu
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Correspondence to Xingyi Zhang.

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Zhang, S., Zhang, X., Huffman, T. et al. Influence of topography and land management on soil nutrients variability in Northeast China. Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst 89, 427–438 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-010-9406-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-010-9406-0

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