The effect of agricultural land utilization on physical and water properties of soil in a ground moraine of the Mazurian Lakeland
Paweł Sowiński
Sławomir Smólczyński
Mirosław Orzechowski
Abstract
A study was carried out in the soil used for agricultural purposes in a rolling bottom moraine of the Mazurian Lakeland. Deluvial and muck soils were found in the depression and lessive soils covered the surrounding slopes. The examined soils were analysed for granulometric composition, bulk and proper density, total porosity, ash content and organic carbon content as well as water sorption curves. Agricultural use of soils accelerates and amplifies deluvial processes that modify both the morphology and physical and water properties of soil. The soil material migration down the slope was observed in the studied soils. In the deluvial and muck soil the content of clay fraction was 2–9 times as high as in the surface layer of lessive soil. Progressing anthropogenic denudation processes resulted in covering the organic layers (muck and peat) with deluvial silt of the thickness of 10–30 cm (mucky soils) and above 30 cm (deluvial soils). Deluvial silt exhibits 2–3-fold greater density and significantly lower porosity (about 20%) than the deeper layers of silted peat muck and lessive peat. The content of macropores and mezopores in the surface layers of deluvial and mucky soils is twice as big as in the deeper silted muck and peat. The content of macropores in the surface layers of deluvial soil is 2–4 times fold low as in the deeper silted alder wood peat. In mucky soil level, a greater content of micropores was characteristic of silted peat muck. In the lessive soil occurring in the vicinity of the depression, a greater content of macropores and a lower content of mezopores and micropores was found. Anthropogenic denudation processes caused by agricultural use of mid-morain depressions soil leads to an increase in the content of mezo- and micropores and a decrease in the content of macropores in the total porosity of the examined soils.
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