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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Soils
Volume 7 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1457776

Soil moisture characteristics of four artificial plant communities in aerial seeding afforestation area and their response to different levels of rainfall

Provisionally accepted
Tiejun Zhang Tiejun Zhang Yanping Liu Yanping Liu *Jianying Guo Jianying Guo *Guodong Tang Guodong Tang *Zhenqi Yang Zhenqi Yang
  • China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Artificial afforestation is an important means to rapidly expand and improve plant coverage in a region, but whether artificial plants can survive in the region for a long time depends on the configuration of artificial plant communities and the soil moisture content in the region. In this paper, four artificial plant communities were studied. Based on the continuous observation data of Soil moisture content and rainfall from June to October in each artificial plant community, the soil moisture characteristics of four artificial plant communities and their responses to different levels of rainfall were analyzed. Results showed that the average Soil moisture content of Hedysarum scoparium community, Hedysarum scoparium-Calligonum mongolicum community, Calligonum mongolicum-Hedysarum scoparium community and Calligonum mongolicum community were 0.80%, 0.67%, 0.64% and 0.75%, respectively. The variation coefficient of Soil moisture content of Calligonum mongolicum community was the largest, which was 22.7%, and the variation coefficient of Soil moisture content of Hedysarum scoparium-Calligonum mongolicum community was the smallest, which was 19.4%. Different grades of rainfall on Calligonum mongolicum community, Calligonum mongolicum-Hedysarum scoparium community soil moisture recharge were higher than that of Hedysarum scoparium community, Hedysarum scoparium-Calligonum mongolicum community, the correlation between soil moisture recharge and rainfall in Calligonum mongolicum community was the smallest. In general, the utilization of Soil moisture content in different soil layers by Hedysarum scoparium-Calligonum mongolicum community is more balanced. The Soil moisture content in each soil layer is less affected by rainfall and has higher stability. Therefore, this community configuration mode should be fully considered in the future aerial seeding afforestation process.

    Keywords: Aerial seeding afforestation, Artificial plant community, Soil moisture content, Soil moisture storage, rainfall

    Received: 12 Jul 2024; Accepted: 13 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Liu, Guo, Tang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yanping Liu, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China
    Jianying Guo, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China
    Guodong Tang, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.