Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Spatial distribution of soil bulk density and its relationship with slope and vegetation allocation model in rehabilitation of dumping site in loess open-pit mine area

  • Published:
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Studies of soil bulk density (BD) spatial variations of land reclaimed after mining have become a focus of land reclamation and ecological restoration research. However, there have been few studies on the relationship among the reconstructed BD, terrain conditions, and vegetation growth. We examined the southern dumping site of the Pingshuo Antaibao open-pit coal mine located in a loess area in China. Field sampling data, digital elevation models (DEMs), and high-definition images were obtained, and indoor testing, geostatistics, and inverse distance weighting (IDW) were applied. This paper aims to analyze the spatial distribution law of the reconstructed BD and focus on its relationship with slope and vegetation allocation models. We demonstrated that (1) BD increased with soil depth and varied moderately within each layer. (2) The BD variation amplitude of the top 0–20-cm soil layer in both the east-west and south-north directions was small and more similar in the east-west direction than in the south-north direction, which was affected by herbaceous root systems. In the next four layers from 20 to 60 cm, the variation in BD in the east-west direction was far larger than that in the south-north direction, which was affected by vegetation classification. (3) On the whole, BD decreased with increasing slope, but when the slope was between 0° and 21°, BD exhibited a specific change law. (4) From the perspective of vegetation classification, the orders of magnitude of BD in the 0–20-cm and 20–60-cm layers differed. Overall, BD in areas vegetated with Korshinsk Peashrub was the lowest, and BD was moderate in areas with mixed vegetation, while BD was the highest in areas without vegetation or only vegetated with Black Locust. The mixed grass-bush-tree or bush-tree mode attained the best effect in regulating BD. These results can improve the basic principles of land reclamation in mining areas and provide a basis for further optimizing land reclamation technology in practice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Locust is short for Black Locust, whose Latin name is Robinia Pseudoacacia L.

  2. Pine is short for Chinese Red Pine, whose Latin name is Pinus Tabulaeformis Carr.

  3. Korshinsk is short for Korshinsk Peashrub, whose Latin name is Caragana Korshinskii Kom.

  4. Sea Buckthorn’s Latin name is Hippophae Rhamnoides Linn.

  5. Artemisia Japonica’s Latin name is Artemisia Capillaris Thunb.

  6. Wheatgrass’s Latin name is Agropyron Cristatum (Linn.) Gaertn.

  7. Elymus Nutans Griseb’s Latin name is Elymus Dahuricus Turcz.

References

  • Bai, Z. K., & Zhao, J. K. (1997). Research on land reclamation in Shanxi coal mining area. Energy Environmental Protection, 11(2), 29–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bai, Z. K., Wang, W. Y., Li, J. C., & Lu, C. E. (1998). Ecological rehabilitation of drastically disturbed land at large opencut coal mine in loess area. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 9(6), 63–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bai, S. H., Ding, X. J., Ma, F. Y., Li, S. S., Jin, R. Y., & Huang, Y. L. (2018). Fine root distribution in mixed Locust pseudoacacia plantations in saline soils of the Yellow River Delta. Chinese Journal of Eco-Agriculture, 26(1), 116–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beriatos, E., Brebbia, C. A., Kungolos, A., & Achilleos, G. A. (2008). Positioning and mapping locations and routes of extended visibility through GIS digital elevation data. International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning, 3(3), 223–241.

  • Bian, Z. F. (2000). Advances in research on land reclamation in coal mining areas. China Land Science, 14(1), 6–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • BP group (2019). BP statistical yearbook of world energy (2019). London: BP p.l.c..

  • Brubaker, S. C., Jone, A. J., & Lewis, D. T. (1993). Soil properties associated with landscape position. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 57(1), 235–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cao, Y. G., Bai, Z. K., Zhang, G. J., Zhou, W., Wang, J. M., Yu, Q. F., & Du, Z. Z. (2013a). Soil quality of surface reclaimed farmland in large open-cast mining area of Shanxi Province. Journal of Agro-Environment Science, 32(12), 2422–2428.

  • Cao, G. D., Chen, J. H., Xia, J., Zhu, H. W., Jiang, Y. C., Zhang, X., & Wang, S. M. (2013b). Analysis of soil physical properties under different vegetation types in the alluvial fan area of Manas River watershed. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 33(1), 195–204.

  • Cao, Y. G., Wang, J. M., Bai, Z. K., Zhou, W., Zhao, Z. Q., Ding, X., & Li, Y. N. (2015). Differentiation and mechanisms on physical properties of reconstructed soils on open-cast mine dump of loess area. Environmental Earth Sciences, 74(8), 6367–6380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cao, Y. G., Martin, D., Lindsay, C. S., Bai, Z. K., & Yim, I. M. (2018). Land expropriation compensation among multiple stakeholders in a mining area: explaining “skeleton house” compensation. Land Use Policy, 74, 97–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chai, H., & He, N. P. (2016). Evaluation of soil bulk density in Chinese terrestrial ecosystems for determination of soil carbon storage on a regional scale. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 36(13), 3903–3910.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaplot, V. (2006). Accuracy of interpolation techniques for the derivation of digital elevation models in relation to landform types and data density. Geomorphology, 77, 126–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, K. S., Wu, T. D., & Tsang, L. (2003). Emission of rough surfaces calculated by the integral equation method with comparison to three-dimensional moment method simulations. Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactionson, 41(1), 90–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cizkova, B., Wos, B., Pietrzykowski, M., & Frouz, J. (2018). Development of soil chemical and microbial properties in reclaimed and unreclaimed grasslands in heaps after opencast lignite mining. Ecological Engineering, 123, 103–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Declercq, F. A. N. (1996). Interpolation methods for scattered sample data: accuracy, spatial patterns, processing time. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 23(3), 128–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ding, X. (2014). Study on influence of slope and slope direction of vegetation cover on vegetation coverage in open-pit coal mine of loess area. Beijing: China University of Geosciences in Beijing.

  • Fan, W. H., Li, H. F., Bai, Z. K., Qiao, J. Y., & Xu, J. W. (2010). Effect of gangue spontaneous combustion on reclaimed soil quality of large-scaled opencast mine in loess area. Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering, 26(2), 319–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fang, L. D., Liao, W. H., Wang, M. Y., & Song, W. Z. (2015). Research of the inverse distance weighted interpolation method considering the elevation. Yellow River, 37(9), 38–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faria, S. R., De la Rosa, J. M., Knicker, H., Gonzalez-Perez, J. A., & Keizer, J. J. (2015). Molecular characterization of wildfire impacts on organic matter in eroded sediments and topsoil in Mediterranean eucalypt stands. Catena, 135(7), 29–37.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Feng, Y., Wang, J. M., Bai, Z. K., & Lucy, R. (2019). Effects of surface coal mining and land reclamation on soil properties: a review. Earth-Science Reviews, 191, 12–25.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Florinsky, I. V., Eilers, R. G., Manning, G. R., & Fuller, L. G. (2002). Prediction of soil properties by digital terrain modeling. Environmental Modelling & Software, 17, 295–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gairola, S. U., & Soni, P. (2010). Role of soil physical properties in ecological succession of restored mine land-A case study. International Journal of Environmental Sciences, 1(4), 475–480.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ge, C. P., Zhao, J., Wang, X. F., Li, Y., & Zhang, X. Y. (2008). Influence of topographic factors on soil water and bulk density in a typical slope land in the black soil area of Northeast China. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation, 28(6), 16–19+2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geng, R., Zhang, G. H., Li, Z. W., Wang, H., & Luan, L. L. (2014). Spatial variability of soil bulk density in shallow gully in loess hilly region. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 28(4), 257–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goovaerts, P. (1998). Geostatistical tools for characterizing the spatial variability of microbiological and physico-chemical soil properties. Biology and Fertility of Soils, 27(4), 315–334.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Goovaerts, P. (2004). Spatial and temporal statis-tics: sampling field soils and their vegetation. Geoderma, 123(1), 189–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu, Z. Q. (1997). Basic principle and method of soil profile reconstruction in coal mine reclamation. Journal of China Coal Society, 22(6), 59–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kosmas, C., Gerontidis, S., & Marathianou, M. (2000). The effect of land use change on soils and vegetation over various lithological formations on Lesvos (Greece). Catena, 40(1), 51–68.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kuklova, M., Kukla, J., Hnilickova, H., Hnilicka, F., & Pivkova, I. (2020). Spatial variability of nutrients in soils and plants of forest ecosystems located near the highway. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 192(8), 534–544.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li, K. M. (2008). Development trend of world coal open pit mining. In Proceedings of the 4th Open-pit Mining Professional Science and Technology Symposium (pp. 172–180).

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, G. (2017). Influence of vegetation construction on the soil bulk density in Northern China based on meta-analysis. Journal of Green Science and Technology, 7(12), 149–153.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, J. Y., & Wang, J. M. (2019). Comprehensive utilization and environmental risks of coal gangue: a review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 239, 117946–117963.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, Z. Q., & Wu, Y. X. (2015). Inverse distance weighted interpolation involving position shading. Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica, 44(1), 91–98.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li, S., Li, Q. Q., Wang, C. Q., Li, B., Gao, X. S., Li, Y. D., & Wu, D. Y. (2019). Spatial variability of soil bulk density and its controlling factors in an agricultural intensive area of Chengdu Plain, Southwest China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 18(2), 290–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Z. G., & Ma, X. H. (1997). Effect of reclamation on soil environment in Sanjiang plain. Pedosphere, 7(1), 73–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, G. M., Wang, Y. J., & Wang, Y. (2010). Impact of inverse distance weighted interpolation factors on interpolation error. China Sciencepaper, 5(11), 879–884.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu, Y. W., Si, B. C., Li, H. J., & Asim, B. (2019). Elucidating controls of the variability of deep soil bulk density. Geoderma, 348, 146–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, P. M., Singer, M. J., & Nielsen, D. R. (1988). Spatial variability of wheat yield and soil properties on complex hills. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 52(4), 1133–1141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Papanicolaou, A. N., Elhakeem, M., Wilson, C. G., Burras, C. L., West, L. T., Lin, H., Clark, B., & Oneal, B. E. (2015). Spatial variability of saturated hydraulic conductivity at the hillslope scale: understanding the role of land management and erosional effect. Geoderma, 243(16), 58–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qi, X. M., Lu, G. H., Wu, Z. Y., & Jin, J. L. (2007). A comparative study of three kinds of point rain interpolation methods. China Rural Water and Hydropower, 60(2), 109–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shan, Y. J., Zhang, M. P., Bai, Z. K., & Zhang, A. G. (2005). Investigation on the evolution of soil quality in the antaibao large-scaled opencast area. Arid Zone Research, 22(4), 149–152.

    Google Scholar 

  • She, D. L., & Shao, M. A. (2009). Spatial variability of soil organic C and total N in a small catchment of the Loess Plateau, China. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica. Section B. Soil and Plant Science, 59(6), 514–524.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shrestha, R. K., & Lal, R. (2011). Changes in physical and chemical properties of soil after surface mining and reclamation. Geoderma., 161, 168–176.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tao, Y., Jiang, Y., Gu, W., & Tian, Y. H. (2011). Competition between growth of herb and shrub in slope protection with plant community. Journal of Northeast Normal University(Natural Science Edition), 43(2), 140–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tranter, G., Minasny, B., Mcbratney, A. B., Murphy, B., Mckenzie, N. J., Grundy, M., & Brough, D. (2007). Building and testing conceptual and empirical models for predicting soil bulk density. Soil Use and Management, 23(4), 437–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vinícius, M. B., Pedro, L. O. A. M., Elaine, C. C. F., Mauricio, R. C., & Beata, E. M. (2007). Pedotransfer functions for estimating soil bulk density from existing soil survey reports in Brazil. Geoderma, 139(1), 90–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, L. B. (2011). The State Council promulgated the implementation of the Land Reclamation Regulations, and the Land Reclamation Regulations promulgated on November 8, 1988 were abolished at the same time. National Land & Resources Information, 10(5), 6–9+1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, J. M., Yang, R. X., & Feng, Y. (2017). Spatial variability of reconstructed soil properties and the optimization of sampling number for reclaimed land monitoring in an opencast coal mine. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 10(2), 46–58.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, F. J., Wang, J. M., & Wang, Y. (2019). Using multi-fractal and joint multi-fractal methods to characterize spatial variability of reconstructed soil properties in an opencast coal-mine dump in the Loess area of China. Catena, 182, 10411–10420.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warkentin, B. P. (1995). The changing concept of soil quality. Soil and Water Conservation, 50(3), 226–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wei, Z. Y., Hu, Z. Q., & Bai, Z. K. (2001). The loose-heaped-ground method of soil reconstruction on the stackpiles of open-pit coal mine. Journal of China Coal Society, 38(1), 18–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wei, J. B., Xiao, D. N., Zhang, X. Y., & Sui, Y. Y. (2006). Spatial variation of soil bulk density in relation between toterrain and land use in eroded of black soil region. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 19(3), 118–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, C. L., Hou, S. N., Yao, Z. D., Zhang, F., & She, D. L. (2017). Spatial variability and scale effect of soil bulk density of farm land in South China. Journal of Drainage and Irrigation Machinery Engineering, 35(5), 424–429.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yang, Y. H., Zhao, W. H., Abla, M., Lin, P. F., Yu, Y. P., Chen, L. L., & Zhang, X. P. (2016). Impacts of vegetation cover on soil physic-chemical properties—a case study in wangdonggou watershed. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation, 36(1), 249–252.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, J. M., Guo, L. P., & Zhang, X. D. (2012). Effects of interpolation parameters in inverse distance weighted method on DEM accuracy. Journal of Geomatics Science and Technology, 29(1), 51–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, X. X., Yang, Z. R., Cha, T. G., Zhang, Z. Q., Wang, G. M., Zhu, Y. S., & Lv, Z. Y. (2017). Changes in the physical properties of soil in forestlands after 22 years under the influence of the Conversion of Cropland into Farmland Project in Loess region, Western Shanxi Province. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 37(2), 416–424.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, M., Wang, J. M., & Li, S. J. (2019). Tempo-spatial changes and main anthropogenic influence factors of vegetation fractional coverage in a large-scale opencast coal mine area from 1992 to 2015. Journal of Cleaner Production, 232, 940–952.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, X. D. (2017). Soil aggregate stability and its affecting factors in artificial Locust pseudoacacia and Korshinsk korshinskii forests on the loess plateau. In University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Center for Soil and Water Conservation and Eco-Environment, Ministry of Education, Chinese Academy of Sciences).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, L. S., Wang, L. H., Liang, X. L., Wang, J., & Wu, F. Q. (2013). Soil surface roughness effects on infiltration process of a cultivated slopes on the loess plateau of China. Water Resources Management, 27(14), 4759–4771.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zheng, L. X., Yang, C., Huang, L. X., & Li, C. G. (2018). Distribution of water quality in a pumped storage reservoir based on inverse distance weighted interpolayion. Ningxia Engineering Technology, 317(3), 270–273.

  • Zheng, J. Y., Shao, M. A., & Zhang, X. C. (2004). Spatial variability of surface bulk density and saturated hydraulic conductivity of slope surface in loess area. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation, 18(3), 53–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, L. L., Zhu, H. Z., Zhong, H. P., Yang, H., Suo, F. Y., Shao, X. M., & Zhao, X. J. (2016). Spatial analysis of soil bulk density in Yili,Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Acta Prataculturae Sinica, 25(1), 64–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhu, L. T., Wang, X. Z., & Jiao, F. (2012). Research of soil bulk density distribution in loess hilly region based on TPS interpolation methods. Chinese Journal of Soil Science, 43(5), 1043–1048.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zou, Y., Xu, J. Z., & Zhang, R. L. (2020). Rethinking vulnerability and human behaviour in arid and semi-arid regions in northwestern China. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 192(6), 379–398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Gubai Luo, Xinyu Kuang, Geng Yang, and Yuhan Huang for participating in the sampling process of this experiment. Their help and hard work are gratefully acknowledged.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41701607, U1810107, and 41571508) and the Project for Basic Scientific Research of the Central Universities (2-9-2018-025 and 2-9-2019-307).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Land Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shufei Wang, Yingui Cao, Wei Zhou, Zhongqiu Zhao & Zhongke Bai

  2. Key Lab of Land Consolidation, Ministry of Natural Resources of the PRC, Beijing, 100035, China

    Yingui Cao, Wei Zhou, Zhongqiu Zhao & Zhongke Bai

  3. Department of Forest Ecology, Forest Faculty, University of Agriculture in Krakow, 31-425, Krakow, Poland

    Marcin Pietrzykowski

Authors
  1. Shufei Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yingui Cao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Marcin Pietrzykowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Wei Zhou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Zhongqiu Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Zhongke Bai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yingui Cao.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, S., Cao, Y., Pietrzykowski, M. et al. Spatial distribution of soil bulk density and its relationship with slope and vegetation allocation model in rehabilitation of dumping site in loess open-pit mine area. Environ Monit Assess 192, 740 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08692-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08692-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation