Characterizing variations in soil particle size distribution in oasis farmlands—A case study of the Cele Oasis

Farmland management effects on the quality of surface soil during oasification in the southern rim of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China

“…the fractal dimension (D) was calculated according to PSD data; the higher the D-value, the better the PSD (Su et al 2004, Wang et al 2008, Gui et al 2009a). Tyler and Wheatcraft's method (Tyler and Wheatcraft 1992) was used for the D-value calculation, using the equation:…”

“…The majority of analyses of soil properties (or soil quality) were conducted on soil of different land-use types with regard to desertification in arid, semi-arid or dry semi-humid climatic zones (Sharma et al 2005, Gui et al 2009a. Soil quality research in extremely arid regions (like the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China), in regard to oasification and aimed at understanding the human effects on one land-use type, is much more limited.…”

Should oasification be ignored when examining desertification in Northwest China?

“…In China, an oasis is usually surrounded by agricultural landuse,which accounts for the largest area and is the most important part [Wahap et al, 2004; Gui et al, 2010]; shelterbelt and natural vegetation located in oasis-desert ecotones, which play an important role in sheltering farmland against damage from sandstorms and strong winds [Metzger et al, 2006;Wang et al, 2007]; and city or town, for human residence and industrial development. The structure of the oasis system determines its function, and the sum area of different land-use types determines the oasis size.…”

“…Oasis expansion (oasification) is the process of conversion of desert to oasis under the activities of humans and human-environment interactions [Wang, 2009;Gui et al, 2011]. Oasification and desertification are basic geographic processes in arid areas [Han and Meng,1999;Gui et al, 2010]; however, oasification receives little attention compared with desertification. Based on the 15 search result from ISI Web of Science between 1996 and 2016, we found that there are around 4000 papers using "desertification" as the key word but less than 40 papers mentioning "oasification".…”

Numerical Investigation of Infiltration Process with Non-uniform Flow in Soils

“…Gui et al [1] has investigated soil compaction caused by wheel traffic. Pagli et al [2] has shown that the soil compaction effect with a rubber tracked tractor was limited to surface layer only.…”