Nitrogen Mineralization Rates in Long-Term Manured Fields Estimated using Lab Incubation Experiment

Volume 4 - Issue 2

Hafida Zaher*, Hassan Benjelloun and Ibrahim Mahamane

Received: November 22, 2019;   Published: December 12, 2019

DOI: 10.32474/OAJESS.2019.04.000185

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Abstract

Human population pressures upon land resources have increased the need to assess impacts of land use change on soil quality. In order to assess effects of land use changes on soil quality properties and carbon storage in Oak forest ecosystem of Morocco, soil samples were collected from two types of stands (green oak and cork oak) with three levels of degradation (natural forest, matorral and cereals crops) or six land uses. For each land use, we estimated carbon stocks in four reservoirs, i.e., aboveground biomass (trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants), belowground biomass (roots), necromass (litter and deadwood) and the soil. Various physicobiochemical characteristics (structural stability, bulk density and soil organic carbon were also evaluated. The results have shown that the cultivation of forests have resulted in the percentage loss of water stable aggregates > 1mm in 59% and 45%, a decline of 76% and 77% in soil organic carbon and an increase of 8% and 10% in the bulk density under green oak and cork oak respectively. The degradation of natural forest by grazing (matorral) is responsible of approximately half carbon stock decreases. Forests are able to store five times more carbon than the cultivated area. The natural cork oak forest store 2.5 times more carbon than in the natural green oak forest. The quantification of carbon stock in different reservoirs (biomass, necromass and soil) showed that the soil has the biggest potential to sequester carbon under six land uses studied. Indeed, the carbon stocks vary from 65 to 95% in soils against 5 to 30% in biomass and only 1 to 11% in necromass.

Keywords: Land use; oak; soil; biomass; necromass; carbon sequestration

Abstract| Introduction| Materials and Methods| Results and Discussion| Conclusion| Acknowledgement| References|