Function of Black Locust Plantation on Enhancing Soil Properties

Abstract

The Yellow River currently debouches north of the Shangdong peninsula. The primary cause of this rapid shift has been the heavy load of silt carried by the Yellow River. As the current slackens near the sea, much of this is redeposited, building up the riverbed and sooner or later forcing the water to run elsewhere. Should a flood occur, the river may break out of the levees into the surrounding lower flood plain and adopt a new course. This has occurred historically about once every 100 years. In modern times, considerable effort has been made to strengthen levees and control floods. The results have shown that soil salinity was reduced 48.64 %; nutrients such as organic matter, total nitrogen and effective nitrogen, total phosphorus and effective phosphorus, and effective potassium were increased 37.32 %, 19.72 %, 53.89 %, 29.71 %, 19.85 %, and 13.10 %, respectively. Soil enzyme activity was higher for forested land, which implied that growing trees could ameliorate soil conditions in the riverbank and help prevent soil erosion to some extent. Therefore, it is concluded that the developing black locust forest ecosystem in the Yellow River Delta region is significant in terms of this adverse and fragile environment. For this ecosystem, the forest is the framework for and main body preventing soil erosion and enhancing riverbank stabilization. Moreover, with stand growing, its function of C sequestration will gradually increase, which implies the importance of tree plantation in the district not only for riverbank protection.