The effects of land use changes and mana
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229988065
The effects of land use changes and
management types on surface soil properties in
Kafkasör Protected Area in Artvin...
Article in Land Degradation and Development · November 2010
DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1000
CITATIONS
READS
12
68
3 authors, including:
Turan YUKSEK
Oguz Kurdoglu
20 PUBLICATIONS 74 CITATIONS
18 PUBLICATIONS 46 CITATIONS
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Üniversitesi (Recep Ta…
SEE PROFILE
Karadeniz Technical University
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Effect of different organic waste materials on fertilizer quality and biomass yield of Californian red
worms View project
TUBITAK TOVAG-108O414 The effects of Cu, Cr and As leached out from CCAtreated utility poles in
Artvin area on soil and ground water and removal of Cu, Cr and As from CCA-treated wood materials.
Project Leader. 15.11.2008–15.05.2012. View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Turan YUKSEK on 13 March 2015.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
land degradation & development
Land Degrad. Develop. 21: 582–590 (2010)
Published online 28 June 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1000
THE EFFECTS OF LAND USE CHANGES AND MANAGEMENT TYPES ON SURFACE
¨ R PROTECTED AREA IN ARTVIN, TURKEY
SOIL PROPERTIES IN KAFKASO
˘ LU2 AND F. YU
¨ KSEK3
¨ KSEK1*, O. KURDOG
T. YU
1
Department of Landscape and Ornamental Plants, Rize University, Pazar Vocational School, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey
2
Department of Forest Engineering, Artvin C¸oruh University, 08000 Artvin, Turkey
3
Pazar Forest Management Directorate, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey
Received 22 December 2008; Revised 3 March 2010; Accepted 29 March 2010
ABSTRACT
The effect of visitors’ activities and management types on surface soil properties continues to be an issue of concern in protected areas. Little
evidence was documented regarding the effects of visitors’ activities on surface soil properties in forest and grassland in forest gap in protected
areas in Turkey. The research focused on the evaluation of the effect of visitor activities and management types on the surface soil
environmental conditions in Kafkaso¨r Protected Area. For this purpose six different land use types were identified and characterized as control
(Natural Old Forest), moderately used forestry (MUF), heavily used forestry (HUF), light grazing in glade (LGG), moderately used glade
(MUG) and heavily used glade (HUG). Fourteen soil properties (such as field capacity (FC), permanent wilting point (PWP), bulk density,
total porosity, soil penetration resistance (SPR), soil organic matter (SOM), etc. . .) were measured on 96 soil pits at 0–5 and 5–10 cm soil
depths in six experimental sites in the study area. According to land use intensity, FC, plant available water (PAW), total porosity, saturated
hydraulic conductivity, cumulative infiltration and SOM decreased significantly while bulk density, PWP and SPR increased significantly in
all experimental sites compared to control site. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words: bulk density; cumulative infiltration; saturated hydraulic conductivity; soil penetration resistance; visitor activities; Turkey; compaction;
trampling
INTRODUCTION
Protected areas worldwide, such as national parks, nature
reserves and wilderness areas are commonly established and
managed to safeguard natural and cultural resources. Internal
and external sources of human impact, including encroaching development, pollution, introduction of exotic species
and recreation or tourism visitation, increasingly threaten to
compromise these purposes. Among these sources, recreation and tourism visitation presents a perennial and growing
management challenge to protected area managers, who are
liable to protect park resources while also providing
appropriate recreational opportunities. These obligations
require managers to carefully manage visitation and any
negative environmental effect or impact. Various forms of
resource impact have been described, including vegetation
loss, soil exposure, compaction and erosion, tree and
seedling damage, wildlife disturbance and miscellaneous
damage caused by depreciative behaviour (Cole, 1987). Soil
systems are not static, but are subject to natural changes.
* Correspondence to: T. Yu¨ksek, Department of Landscape and Ornamental
Plants, Rize University, Pazar Vocational School, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey.
E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
These include both directional and cyclic changes. Changes
can occur over time units ranging from days to millennia.
Impacts of human activity are superimposed on these natural
changes and their significance should be evaluated in the
light of natural changes. Assessment of the sensitivity of the
soil landscape to further change should also consider natural
variability in both space and time (Grieve, 2001). Recreational activities significantly damage physical and hydrophysical properties of surface soils. Currently, the demand
for recreational diversity has been rapidly increasing and this
makes planning and protection difficult in Kafkaso¨r protected
area (Yu¨ksek et al., 2008). Intensive recreational use of
forested soils leads to soil compaction and increased bulk
densities in area. An important consequence of increased bulk
density is reduced soil water intake capacity and thus
increased losses by surface runoff (Vimmerstadt et al.,
1982). Ball games and other activities may wear out a good
stand of grassland and damage topsoil structure (Troeh and
Thompson, 1993). The major cause of soil compaction is the
traffic over the fields (Short et al., 1986; Yu¨ksek et al., 2008).
Tractors, implements, livestock and even humans (walking, camping, car parking) can compact soil when travelling
across a field (Craul, 1994). How much compaction occurs
depends on many factors: soil physical conditions, soil types
EFFECTS OF LAND USE CHANGES AND MANAGEMENT TYPES
(texture) as well as weight and design of the load on soil,
distribution of the load over the number of axles and tires
and number of trips made over the same area (Brady and
Weil, 1999). Tractors and other heavy equipment compact
the soil to considerable depths (Daum, 1996) and significant
changes occur in soil strength and saturated hydraulic
conductivity due to the traffic. The most significant impact
occurs in surface layer. Then soil compaction reduces soil
infiltrability and permeability (Froehlich and McNabb,
1983.) Similarly, if the compaction is accomplished with
proper moisture control, the movement of capillary water is
minimized (Gent and Ballard, 1985). It is well known that
root and plant growth significantly decreases when surface
soil properties (especially physical and hydraulic properties)
are damaged. Kerbiriou et al. (2008) reported that the degree
of activity concentration on individual campsites have a
substantial effect on the magnitude of vegetation loss and
species richness.
Kafkaso¨r protected area is located in Artvin Province
which has rich bio-diversity. According to IUCN risk (EN,
VU, LR(lc), LR(cd), LR(nt) and DD) categories there are a
total of 30 taxa, all endemics, and 14 non-endemics in
Kafkaso¨r and its close environments (Eminag˘aog˘lu and
Ans¸in, 2005). Besides that, the vegetation of Kafkaso¨r
protected area and its close environment have a very
important role for soil conservation, and vegetation type of
Kafkaso¨r has critical role to reduce landslide risk in this area.
It is well known that there are some areas (lands), which
have high landslide risk between Artvin City and Kafkaso¨r
protected area (Anonymous, 1993). There is a strong need to
assess the changes in soil properties in these protected areas
and apply this knowledge to effective or sustainable
ecosystem management. Maintenance of these ecosystems
essentially depends on soil quality and water availability.
Since soil quality is a function of soil physical and chemical
properties, land use were assessed in this area using soil
chemical and physical properties as indicators. Therefore, to
maintain vegetation structure of Kafkaso¨r protected area, we
must protect surface soil physical and hydraulic properties
and we must establish best management strategies.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different
density of visitor activities on surface soil environmental
conditions in the different ecosystems in Kafkaso¨r protected
area in Artvin, Turkey. It is hoped that this information will
provide guidance to managers in future visitor capacity
decisions and in the further development of appropriate
minimum impact visitor practices in Kafkaso¨r protected area.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
583
090 4600 –41* 100 040 N and 41* 470 4400 –41* 470 5700 E. The
altitude of the area is between 1150 and 1280 m above sea
level. Since there is no meteorological station in the study
area, the nearest meteorological station in Artvin was taken
into account. The climate is sub-humid, with a long-term
annual average rainfall of 689 mm, while it was 880 mm in
2007, with a minimum in summer (103 mm), and maximum
in winter (262 mm) and the mean annual temperature is
1238C in Artvin Meteorological station (Anonymous,
2007). Heavy rains occur in a short time period during
the summer season, while high snow levels (more than 1 m
high) occur in the winter season. The study area is
moderately sloped (20 2 per cent). The soils of the area
were classified as brown forest soils with sandy–loam—
loam texture according to International Soil Classification
¨ lmez,
System (ISCS) (Anonymous, 1993; Yu¨ksek and O
2002). The rock mass is extensively volcanically disrupted
and parent material is andesite. The forest site of study area
consists of Picea orientalis Link (745 per cent), Carpinus
betulus (L.) (22 per cent), Quercus petraea (L.) (65 per
cent), Fagus orientalis (L.) (72 per cent), Abies nordmanniana Stev (74 per cent), Pinus sylvestris (L.) (22 per
cent) (Anonymous, 2005) and grassland in forest gap
consists of Brachypodium pinnatum (L.), Bromus tectorum
(L.), Avena sativa (L.), Poa annua (L.), P. trivialis (L.),
P. nemoralis (L.), P. bulbosa (L.), Agrostis stolonifera (L.),
Dactylis glomerata (L.), Cynosurus echinatus (L.),
C. cristatus (L.), Phleum alpinum (L.), P. pratense (L.),
Cynodon dactylon (L.), Trifolium pratense (L.), T. repens
(L.) and T. arvense (L.) (Eminag˘aog˘lu and Ans¸in, 2005).
Kafkaso¨r and its environment have different topography,
rich and abundant vegetation, clean and fresh air and it is
8 km away from the city centre of Artvin. The landscape
beauty of Kafkaso¨r has been advertised often on magazines
and television programs after 1990s; therefore, the number
of visitors has been increasing from day to day. It was
estimated that more than 100 000 people visited Kafkaso¨r
during 2006, and most of the visitors visited Kafkasor from
July to September. Beside prevalent recreational activities,
Kafkaso¨r Culture, Art and Tourism Festival has been carried
on since 1984 and tourism is nowadays the main source of
income for local inhabitants since the abandonment of
traditional agriculture, and there is a strong social and
economical pressure for tourism in protected areas. The
festival area is about 23 ha and there is no accepted land use
plan for this area. Except for the traditional Kafkaso¨r
festival, people can enter the area free of charge and can
camp in any part of grassland in forest gap and there is
randomly light grazing in grassland in forest gap.
Site Description and History
Experimental Design and Soil Sampling
The study was conducted in Kafkaso¨r-Artvin in the NorthEastern Blacksea of Turkey. The study area is located at 41*
Preliminary study was conducted in Kafkaso¨r protected area to
determine land use types and intensity (such as control, 1000
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 21: 582–590 (2010)
584
¨ KSEK ET AL.
T. YU
people/ha, and >1000 people/ha, light grazing, etc. . .). For
this purpose, public survey about land use types and intensity
of visitors/or grazing was carried out with the visual
observation in the mid summer (15 July–15 August) of
2005 and 2006 in Kafkaso¨r protected area. In the present study,
according to visual observation and public survey, research
sites were categorized as two different land use types (forest
and glade), three different density types (not used, 1000
people/ha and >1000 people/ha) in forest and three different
density types (light grazing, less than 1000 people/ha and more
than 1000 people/ha) in glade were determined (Table I).
Randomized block design with four replications for each
land use treatment was selected for soil sampling. The four
disturbed and four undisturbed soil samples were randomly
taken at a soil depth of 0–5 and 5–10 cm on each plot by
using plastic bag and garden trowel in the study area. The
undisturbed soil samples were taken by using a steel core
sampler of 9818 cm3 volume (5 cm in diameter and 5 cm in
height). The soil penetration resistance (SPR) (Bradford,
1986) was measured from ground level to 40 cm depth.
Measurements were recorded at depth intervals of 5 cm,
using a manual (hand-pushed) 13 mm diameter cone (308)
penetrometer and 20 measurements were done on each plot.
Measurement of SPR was done simultaneously in all land
use types. Cumulative infiltration in the field was determined
using a single ring infiltrometer (Bouwer, 1986) with 20 cm
diameter and by a 20 cm height cylinder and three
measurements were done on each plot. The site was
prepared by removing all residues and any large clods (in
tilled soils) that would interfere with achieving a level
surface. The cylinder was pounded approximately 5 cm into
the ground. The change in water depth of the cylinder was
measured over a period of 2 h at times 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40,
60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 min.
Laboratory Analysis
Particle size distribution was determined by using disturbed
soil samples sieved through a 2 mm by the Bouyoucos
hydrometer method (Bouyoucos, 1962). Field capacity (FC)
was measured by subjecting saturated soil samples
The effects of land use changes and
management types on surface soil properties in
Kafkasör Protected Area in Artvin...
Article in Land Degradation and Development · November 2010
DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1000
CITATIONS
READS
12
68
3 authors, including:
Turan YUKSEK
Oguz Kurdoglu
20 PUBLICATIONS 74 CITATIONS
18 PUBLICATIONS 46 CITATIONS
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Üniversitesi (Recep Ta…
SEE PROFILE
Karadeniz Technical University
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Effect of different organic waste materials on fertilizer quality and biomass yield of Californian red
worms View project
TUBITAK TOVAG-108O414 The effects of Cu, Cr and As leached out from CCAtreated utility poles in
Artvin area on soil and ground water and removal of Cu, Cr and As from CCA-treated wood materials.
Project Leader. 15.11.2008–15.05.2012. View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Turan YUKSEK on 13 March 2015.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
land degradation & development
Land Degrad. Develop. 21: 582–590 (2010)
Published online 28 June 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1000
THE EFFECTS OF LAND USE CHANGES AND MANAGEMENT TYPES ON SURFACE
¨ R PROTECTED AREA IN ARTVIN, TURKEY
SOIL PROPERTIES IN KAFKASO
˘ LU2 AND F. YU
¨ KSEK3
¨ KSEK1*, O. KURDOG
T. YU
1
Department of Landscape and Ornamental Plants, Rize University, Pazar Vocational School, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey
2
Department of Forest Engineering, Artvin C¸oruh University, 08000 Artvin, Turkey
3
Pazar Forest Management Directorate, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey
Received 22 December 2008; Revised 3 March 2010; Accepted 29 March 2010
ABSTRACT
The effect of visitors’ activities and management types on surface soil properties continues to be an issue of concern in protected areas. Little
evidence was documented regarding the effects of visitors’ activities on surface soil properties in forest and grassland in forest gap in protected
areas in Turkey. The research focused on the evaluation of the effect of visitor activities and management types on the surface soil
environmental conditions in Kafkaso¨r Protected Area. For this purpose six different land use types were identified and characterized as control
(Natural Old Forest), moderately used forestry (MUF), heavily used forestry (HUF), light grazing in glade (LGG), moderately used glade
(MUG) and heavily used glade (HUG). Fourteen soil properties (such as field capacity (FC), permanent wilting point (PWP), bulk density,
total porosity, soil penetration resistance (SPR), soil organic matter (SOM), etc. . .) were measured on 96 soil pits at 0–5 and 5–10 cm soil
depths in six experimental sites in the study area. According to land use intensity, FC, plant available water (PAW), total porosity, saturated
hydraulic conductivity, cumulative infiltration and SOM decreased significantly while bulk density, PWP and SPR increased significantly in
all experimental sites compared to control site. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words: bulk density; cumulative infiltration; saturated hydraulic conductivity; soil penetration resistance; visitor activities; Turkey; compaction;
trampling
INTRODUCTION
Protected areas worldwide, such as national parks, nature
reserves and wilderness areas are commonly established and
managed to safeguard natural and cultural resources. Internal
and external sources of human impact, including encroaching development, pollution, introduction of exotic species
and recreation or tourism visitation, increasingly threaten to
compromise these purposes. Among these sources, recreation and tourism visitation presents a perennial and growing
management challenge to protected area managers, who are
liable to protect park resources while also providing
appropriate recreational opportunities. These obligations
require managers to carefully manage visitation and any
negative environmental effect or impact. Various forms of
resource impact have been described, including vegetation
loss, soil exposure, compaction and erosion, tree and
seedling damage, wildlife disturbance and miscellaneous
damage caused by depreciative behaviour (Cole, 1987). Soil
systems are not static, but are subject to natural changes.
* Correspondence to: T. Yu¨ksek, Department of Landscape and Ornamental
Plants, Rize University, Pazar Vocational School, 53300 Pazar-Rize, Turkey.
E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
These include both directional and cyclic changes. Changes
can occur over time units ranging from days to millennia.
Impacts of human activity are superimposed on these natural
changes and their significance should be evaluated in the
light of natural changes. Assessment of the sensitivity of the
soil landscape to further change should also consider natural
variability in both space and time (Grieve, 2001). Recreational activities significantly damage physical and hydrophysical properties of surface soils. Currently, the demand
for recreational diversity has been rapidly increasing and this
makes planning and protection difficult in Kafkaso¨r protected
area (Yu¨ksek et al., 2008). Intensive recreational use of
forested soils leads to soil compaction and increased bulk
densities in area. An important consequence of increased bulk
density is reduced soil water intake capacity and thus
increased losses by surface runoff (Vimmerstadt et al.,
1982). Ball games and other activities may wear out a good
stand of grassland and damage topsoil structure (Troeh and
Thompson, 1993). The major cause of soil compaction is the
traffic over the fields (Short et al., 1986; Yu¨ksek et al., 2008).
Tractors, implements, livestock and even humans (walking, camping, car parking) can compact soil when travelling
across a field (Craul, 1994). How much compaction occurs
depends on many factors: soil physical conditions, soil types
EFFECTS OF LAND USE CHANGES AND MANAGEMENT TYPES
(texture) as well as weight and design of the load on soil,
distribution of the load over the number of axles and tires
and number of trips made over the same area (Brady and
Weil, 1999). Tractors and other heavy equipment compact
the soil to considerable depths (Daum, 1996) and significant
changes occur in soil strength and saturated hydraulic
conductivity due to the traffic. The most significant impact
occurs in surface layer. Then soil compaction reduces soil
infiltrability and permeability (Froehlich and McNabb,
1983.) Similarly, if the compaction is accomplished with
proper moisture control, the movement of capillary water is
minimized (Gent and Ballard, 1985). It is well known that
root and plant growth significantly decreases when surface
soil properties (especially physical and hydraulic properties)
are damaged. Kerbiriou et al. (2008) reported that the degree
of activity concentration on individual campsites have a
substantial effect on the magnitude of vegetation loss and
species richness.
Kafkaso¨r protected area is located in Artvin Province
which has rich bio-diversity. According to IUCN risk (EN,
VU, LR(lc), LR(cd), LR(nt) and DD) categories there are a
total of 30 taxa, all endemics, and 14 non-endemics in
Kafkaso¨r and its close environments (Eminag˘aog˘lu and
Ans¸in, 2005). Besides that, the vegetation of Kafkaso¨r
protected area and its close environment have a very
important role for soil conservation, and vegetation type of
Kafkaso¨r has critical role to reduce landslide risk in this area.
It is well known that there are some areas (lands), which
have high landslide risk between Artvin City and Kafkaso¨r
protected area (Anonymous, 1993). There is a strong need to
assess the changes in soil properties in these protected areas
and apply this knowledge to effective or sustainable
ecosystem management. Maintenance of these ecosystems
essentially depends on soil quality and water availability.
Since soil quality is a function of soil physical and chemical
properties, land use were assessed in this area using soil
chemical and physical properties as indicators. Therefore, to
maintain vegetation structure of Kafkaso¨r protected area, we
must protect surface soil physical and hydraulic properties
and we must establish best management strategies.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different
density of visitor activities on surface soil environmental
conditions in the different ecosystems in Kafkaso¨r protected
area in Artvin, Turkey. It is hoped that this information will
provide guidance to managers in future visitor capacity
decisions and in the further development of appropriate
minimum impact visitor practices in Kafkaso¨r protected area.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
583
090 4600 –41* 100 040 N and 41* 470 4400 –41* 470 5700 E. The
altitude of the area is between 1150 and 1280 m above sea
level. Since there is no meteorological station in the study
area, the nearest meteorological station in Artvin was taken
into account. The climate is sub-humid, with a long-term
annual average rainfall of 689 mm, while it was 880 mm in
2007, with a minimum in summer (103 mm), and maximum
in winter (262 mm) and the mean annual temperature is
1238C in Artvin Meteorological station (Anonymous,
2007). Heavy rains occur in a short time period during
the summer season, while high snow levels (more than 1 m
high) occur in the winter season. The study area is
moderately sloped (20 2 per cent). The soils of the area
were classified as brown forest soils with sandy–loam—
loam texture according to International Soil Classification
¨ lmez,
System (ISCS) (Anonymous, 1993; Yu¨ksek and O
2002). The rock mass is extensively volcanically disrupted
and parent material is andesite. The forest site of study area
consists of Picea orientalis Link (745 per cent), Carpinus
betulus (L.) (22 per cent), Quercus petraea (L.) (65 per
cent), Fagus orientalis (L.) (72 per cent), Abies nordmanniana Stev (74 per cent), Pinus sylvestris (L.) (22 per
cent) (Anonymous, 2005) and grassland in forest gap
consists of Brachypodium pinnatum (L.), Bromus tectorum
(L.), Avena sativa (L.), Poa annua (L.), P. trivialis (L.),
P. nemoralis (L.), P. bulbosa (L.), Agrostis stolonifera (L.),
Dactylis glomerata (L.), Cynosurus echinatus (L.),
C. cristatus (L.), Phleum alpinum (L.), P. pratense (L.),
Cynodon dactylon (L.), Trifolium pratense (L.), T. repens
(L.) and T. arvense (L.) (Eminag˘aog˘lu and Ans¸in, 2005).
Kafkaso¨r and its environment have different topography,
rich and abundant vegetation, clean and fresh air and it is
8 km away from the city centre of Artvin. The landscape
beauty of Kafkaso¨r has been advertised often on magazines
and television programs after 1990s; therefore, the number
of visitors has been increasing from day to day. It was
estimated that more than 100 000 people visited Kafkaso¨r
during 2006, and most of the visitors visited Kafkasor from
July to September. Beside prevalent recreational activities,
Kafkaso¨r Culture, Art and Tourism Festival has been carried
on since 1984 and tourism is nowadays the main source of
income for local inhabitants since the abandonment of
traditional agriculture, and there is a strong social and
economical pressure for tourism in protected areas. The
festival area is about 23 ha and there is no accepted land use
plan for this area. Except for the traditional Kafkaso¨r
festival, people can enter the area free of charge and can
camp in any part of grassland in forest gap and there is
randomly light grazing in grassland in forest gap.
Site Description and History
Experimental Design and Soil Sampling
The study was conducted in Kafkaso¨r-Artvin in the NorthEastern Blacksea of Turkey. The study area is located at 41*
Preliminary study was conducted in Kafkaso¨r protected area to
determine land use types and intensity (such as control, 1000
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 21: 582–590 (2010)
584
¨ KSEK ET AL.
T. YU
people/ha, and >1000 people/ha, light grazing, etc. . .). For
this purpose, public survey about land use types and intensity
of visitors/or grazing was carried out with the visual
observation in the mid summer (15 July–15 August) of
2005 and 2006 in Kafkaso¨r protected area. In the present study,
according to visual observation and public survey, research
sites were categorized as two different land use types (forest
and glade), three different density types (not used, 1000
people/ha and >1000 people/ha) in forest and three different
density types (light grazing, less than 1000 people/ha and more
than 1000 people/ha) in glade were determined (Table I).
Randomized block design with four replications for each
land use treatment was selected for soil sampling. The four
disturbed and four undisturbed soil samples were randomly
taken at a soil depth of 0–5 and 5–10 cm on each plot by
using plastic bag and garden trowel in the study area. The
undisturbed soil samples were taken by using a steel core
sampler of 9818 cm3 volume (5 cm in diameter and 5 cm in
height). The soil penetration resistance (SPR) (Bradford,
1986) was measured from ground level to 40 cm depth.
Measurements were recorded at depth intervals of 5 cm,
using a manual (hand-pushed) 13 mm diameter cone (308)
penetrometer and 20 measurements were done on each plot.
Measurement of SPR was done simultaneously in all land
use types. Cumulative infiltration in the field was determined
using a single ring infiltrometer (Bouwer, 1986) with 20 cm
diameter and by a 20 cm height cylinder and three
measurements were done on each plot. The site was
prepared by removing all residues and any large clods (in
tilled soils) that would interfere with achieving a level
surface. The cylinder was pounded approximately 5 cm into
the ground. The change in water depth of the cylinder was
measured over a period of 2 h at times 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40,
60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 min.
Laboratory Analysis
Particle size distribution was determined by using disturbed
soil samples sieved through a 2 mm by the Bouyoucos
hydrometer method (Bouyoucos, 1962). Field capacity (FC)
was measured by subjecting saturated soil samples