Impact of Agricultural Land Use Types on Soil Moisture Retention of Loamy Soils

Abstract

Increasingly severe hydrological extremes are predicted for the Pannonian Basin as one of the consequences of climate change. The challenges of extreme droughts require the adaptation of agriculture especially during the intense growth phase of crops. For dryland farming, the selections of the optimal land use type and sustainable agricultural land management are potential adaptation tools for facing the challenges posed by increased aridity. To this end, it is indispensable to understand soil moisture (SM) dynamics under different land use types over drought-affected periods. Within the framework of a Slovenian–Hungarian project, soil moisture, matric potential and rainfall time series have been collected at three pilot sites of different land use types (pasture, orchards and a ploughland) in SW Hungary since September 2018. Experiments were carried out in soils of silt, silt loam and clay loam texture. In the summers (June 1 to August 31) of 2019 and 2022, we identified normal and dry conditions, respectively, with regard to differences in water balance. Our results demonstrated that soil moisture is closely controlled by land use. Marked differences of the moisture regime were revealed among the three land use types based on statistical analyses. Soils under pasture had the most balanced regime, whereas ploughland soils indicated the highest amplitude of moisture dynamics. The orchard, however, showed responses to weather conditions in sharp contrast with the other two sites. Our results are applicable for loamy soils under humid and subhumid temperate climates and for periods of extreme droughts, a condition which is expected to be the norm for the future.

Plant Growth and Soil Water Content Changes under Different Inter-Row Soil Management Methods in a Sloping Vineyard

“…Such factors include the natural environment in which the vegetation is located and the soil management practices used to enhance crop or fruit yield. Soil moisture can be affected by vegetation or land use types [ 2 , 3 ], topography or slope direction [ 4 , 5 ], climate [ 6 ], latitudes [ 7 ], soil physical and chemical properties [ 8 ], or soil management methods [ 9 ], etc., each with additional sub-categories that further influence the hydrological processes in the area. In the present paper, we mainly focus on two major factors of soil–plant–water systems, namely inter-row management and slope positions.…”

Impact of land use types on soil moisture dynamics of loamy soils

“…This pattern was demonstrated in Hungary in 2010 and 2011 with a back-to back recorded high and low annual precipitation totals. However, the conservation of water in the soil from the previous year in 2011 did not cause economic losses in cultivated crop yield [9,10]. Since the construction of massive structures such as dams is costly and harmful to the environment and ecosystem service, [11] the importance of flood control by natural processes has become evident.…”

Applications of GIS and Remote Sensing in Soil Environment Monitoring

“…In this volume, various aspects of environmental monitoring have been addressed in a logical framework. In some cases, the focus was on hazard detection and mapping [9][10][11][12][13]; in others, the focus was on the detection and description of soil properties and their contribution to land use determination [14][15][16]. The papers addressed the issues at different scales: regional scale [10,13,14,17]; watershed scale [9,12]; and field scale [11,17].…”