Soil properties and erodibility status in relation to land uses in a Giri river micro-watershed in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53550/Keywords:
Erodibility status, Land uses, Soil properties, Water stable aggregatesAbstract
Investigations were undertaken during 2011 for computing and comparing soil hydro-physical and chemical properties and erodibility status under different land uses (agricultural, orchard, scrub, agri-silvi-horti lands) in microwatershed of Giri river catchment (Ga3a) in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh. Results revealed that soils of micro-watershed under all land uses were neutral in reaction, lighter in texture having gravely silt loam textural class. Among land uses, orchard soils had lowest bulk density and better aggregate stability. Water retention under different land uses followed the order: Orchard > agrisilvi- horti > agriculture > scrub lands. Soils were low in available N, very high in P and low to medium in K status. As per the erodibility indices viz., Dispersion ratio (DR), Erosion ratio (ER), Erodibility index (EI), soils under all land uses were found erodible in nature but the orchard and agri-silvi-horti lands were less erodible than soils under agricultural and scrub lands and followed the order for the susceptibility to erosion: Scrubs > agriculture > Agri-silvi-horti > orchard land. There is a need to adopt suitable soil and water conservation measures in agricultural and orchard lands to sustain their health for sustaining the crop production by checking soil erodibility.
References
Bhatia, K.S. and Vardani. 1982. Physico-chemical and erosional behaviour of red and black soils of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. J. Indian Soc. Soil Sci., 30: 523-527.
Bryan, R.B. 1967. The relative erodibility of some Reak district soils. Ph. D. Thesis, University of Sheffield.
Chakrabarti, D.C. 1971. Investigation on erodibility and water stable aggregates of certain soils of Eastern Nepal. J. Indian Soc. Soil Sci., 19: 441-446.
Dabral, P.P., Murry, R.L. and Lallen, P. 2001. Erodibility status under different land uses in Dikrong river basin of Arunachal Pradesh. Ind. J. Soil. Cons., 29: 280-282.
Jackson, M.L. 1973. Soil Chemical Analysis. Prentice Hall, India, Pvt, Ltd., New Delhi.
Middleton, H.E., Stater, C.S. and Bayers, M.G. 1930. Physical and chemical properties of soils from the erosion experiment station. U.S. Dept. Agric. Tech. Bull. 376: 1-51.
Piper,C.S. 1966. Soil and Plant Analysis. Hans Publishers, Bombay.
Richards, L.A. 1947. Pressure membrane apparatus construction and use. Agronomical Eng., 28: 451-454.
Sahi, B.P., Singh, S.N., Sinha, A.C. and Acharya, B. 1977. Erosion index Anew index of soil erodibility. J.Indian Soc. Soil Sci., 25: 7-10.
Sharma, I.P., Kanwar, B.S. and Gupta, M.P. 1987. Physico-chemical properties of Kangra soils in relation to their erodibility. Ind. J. Soil. Cons., 15:43-47.
Sidhu, G.S., Walia, C.S., Sachdev, C.B., Rana, K.P.C. and Velayutham, M. 2000. Soil resource of N-W Shiwaliks for perspective land use planning. In: Fifty Years of Research on Sustainable Resource Management in Shiwaliks. (Eds. S.P Mittal, R.K aggarwal and J.S. Samra), pp. 23-34.
Yadav, R.P. and Sidhu, G.S. 2010. Assessment of soil erosion in Himachal Pradesh. J.Indian Soc. Soil Sci., 58(2): 212-220.
Yoder, R.E. 1936. Direct method of aggregate analysis and study of the physical nature of erosion losses. J.Am. Soc.Agron., 28: 337-351.
Yonker, R.E. and Mc Guinness, J.C. 1957. A short method of obtaining mean weight diameter values of aggregate analysis of soil. Soil Sci., 83: 291-29.
