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Effects of groundwater level decline to soil and vegetation in arid grassland: a case study of Hulunbuir open pit coal mine

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Abstract

Coal mine in arid and semi-arid area is one of the most severely degraded ecosystems on the earth. The continuous decrease in groundwater level caused by coal mining will inevitably affect biogeochemical environment of the vadose zone, and then lead to the replacement of surface vegetation. Yimin open-pit coal mine was taken as an example to reveal the relationship between the groundwater depth and soil water content (SWC), soil salt content, soil electrical conductivity (SEC), soil organic matter (SOM), soil available potassium (SAK), soil available nitrogen (SAN), vegetation coverage, aboveground biomass and species richness. The results show that, the change of groundwater depth can affect soil properties and then change the characteristics of surface vegetation, and the change of surface vegetation can also react on soil properties. Vegetation coverage and aboveground biomass are negatively correlated with groundwater depth, and positively correlated with SWC, SEC, SOM and SAK. The shallow groundwater table is conducive to the accumulation of SOM, so that the surface biomass and vegetation coverage are high. The higher the surface biomass, the more the SAN is absorbed. Under natural conditions, the relative strength of biological nitrogen fixation and plant absorption determine the content of SAN. In the research area, when the depth of groundwater is less than 0.4 m will cause soil salinization, then lead to low species richness; Species richness is exponentially correlated with groundwater depth and decreases with the increase in groundwater depth.

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Data availability

The data in this study are from field sampling data and groundwater survey data, which are all available data.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (41562020). We are also thanks to our all laboratory colleagues and research staff members for their constructive advice and help.

Funding

The study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41562020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, 010021, Inner Mongolia, China

    Shaogang Dong, Mingyan Ma, Manhong Xia & Chao Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of River and Lake Ecology of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot, 010021, Inner Mongolia, China

    Shaogang Dong

  3. Academic Affair Office, Inner Mongolia University, No. 235 University West Road, Saihan District, Hohhot, 010021, Inner Mongolia, China

    Baiwei Liu

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  1. Shaogang Dong
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  4. Manhong Xia
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Contributions

SD contributed to conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing original draft, writing review and editing and visualization. BL contributed to Conceptualization, validation, resources, supervision, project administration. MM contributed to english editing, picture beautification and investigation. MX contributed to investigation, software and formal analysis. CW contributed to investigation, methodology.

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Correspondence to Baiwei Liu.

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Dong, S., Liu, B., Ma, M. et al. Effects of groundwater level decline to soil and vegetation in arid grassland: a case study of Hulunbuir open pit coal mine. Environ Geochem Health 45, 1793–1806 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-022-01292-y

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