Combining infiltration holes and level ditches to enhance the soil water and nutrient pools for semi-arid slope shrubland revegetation

Effect of using an infiltration hole and mulching in fish‐scale pits on soil water, nitrogen, and organic matter contents: Evidence from a 4‐year field experiment

“…Different lower-case letters indicate significant differences among all treatments at p < 0.05 [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] had been not added in 4 years since the fish-scale pits were covered by gravel and straw in 2016 in this study. Compared to gravel, straw has a lower density and is easily eroded away by overland flow, especially under high-intensity and erosive rainfall (Wang et al, 2020). The decomposition of straw can also lead to a decrease in the amounts of straw materials.…”

“…An Infiltration hole is a supplemental measure of slope engineering. It is vertically drilled on the ground of the installed slope engineering measures and can be fillled with a certain volume to improve infiltration (Wang et al, 2020; Zheng et al, 2019). Runoff can rapidly and directly infiltrate into the deeper soil layer via the bottom and sidewall of the hole, rather than just through the ground surface.…”

“…Hence combining infiltration hole and slope engineering measure can intercept and infiltrate more overland flow into deeper soil layers and reduce water evaporation thereby increasing the utilization of runoff and alleviating the desiccation of deep soils. In addition, the nutrient‐rich sediments intercepted by slope engineering measure can be transported and stored into infiltration holes via runoff (Wang et al, 2020). This is essential to enhance the effective utilization of nutrient‐rich sediments and improve soil nitrogen and organic matter contents of the root zone for the growth of vegetation.…”

“…Slope engineering measures such as fish-scale pit, level ditch, and terrace can effectively intercept runoff and sediments via altering the microtopography (Chen et al, 2020;Feng et al, 2018;Garcia-Franco et al, 2014). The runoff and nutrient-rich sediments intercepted by engineering measures are the most valuable water and nutrient resources for slope revegetation and are retained in shallow soil layers (Feng et al, 2018(Feng et al, , 2019Wang et al, 2020). However, most of the rainfall in shallow soil layers is easily and rapidly dissipated into the atmosphere due to intensive soil evaporation in arid and semiarid areas and the utilization rate of rainfall resources is limited (Xu, 2011).…”

“…Runoff can rapidly and directly infiltrate into the deeper soil layer via the bottom and sidewall of the hole, rather than just through the ground surface. Moreover, the greater infiltration area offered by the infiltration hole enhances the ability of soil water infiltration (Wang et al, 2020). Hence combining infiltration hole and slope engineering measure can intercept and infiltrate more overland flow into deeper soil layers and reduce water evaporation thereby increasing the utilization of runoff and alleviating the desiccation of deep soils.…”