Relationship between soil and water conservation practices and soil conditions in low mountain and hilly region of Northeast China.

The soil and water conservation practices of ecological restoration (ER), fish scale pit (FP), furrow and ridge tillage across the slope (FR), shrub strips (SS), and vegetation-covered ridge (VR) are characteristic of the Jixing small watershed of the low mountain and hilly region of Jilin Province, Northeast China. This study aims to elucidate the effects of soil and water conservation practices on soil conditions after the short-term implementation of practices. Soil samples were collected from five soil and water conservation sites (ER, FP, FR, SS, and VR) and two controls (BL and CT) to investigate their properties. To evaluate the influence of soil and water conservation practices on soil quality, an integrated quantitative index, soil quality index (QI), was developed to compare the soil quality under the different soil and water conservation practices. The results show that not all soil and water conservation practices can improve the soil conditions and not all soil properties, especially soil organic carbon (SOC), can be recovered under soil and water conservation practice in short-term. Moreover, the QI in the five soil and water conservation practices and two controls was in the following order: ER > VR > BL > FR > CT > SS > FP. ER exhibited a higher soil quality value on a slope scale. In the low mountain and hilly region of Northeast China, ER is a better choice than the conversion of farmlands to planted grasslands and woodlands early in the soil and water conservation program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]