Monday, 7 November 2005 - 2:30 PM
122-6

Soil quality and carbon sequestration in reclaimed mineland, agricultural land, and natural forest ecosystems in eastern Ohio.

Raj K. Shrestha and Rattan Lal. Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, OARDC/FAES, School of Natural Resources, Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210

The concern about the contributions of coal mining activities on soil disturbance and increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations has prompted interest in the identification of mineland reclamation strategies which improve soil quality, enhance carbon sequestration, and offset CO2 emissions. There are 40,604 ha of coalmine lands in Ohio. Thus, field studies were conducted in reclaimed minelands of Ohio with the objectives to evaluate the effect of soil disturbance and reclamation practices on soil quality, CO2 emissions and carbon sequestration. The study compares three levels of disturbances: undisturbed-natural forest, moderately disturbed-agricultural field and drastically disturbed fields with three reclamation practices: forest, hay and pasture. The physical, chemical, and biological properties of the soil were measured. The surface layer (0-5cm depth) of moderately disturbed agricultural soil had the highest bulk density (BD) of 1.3 g cm-3 compared to drastically disturbed (1.1 g cm-3) and undisturbed (1.0 g cm-3). However, BD of the subsurface layers increased with increase in the intensity of soil disturbances. Among three reclamation practices, pastures had the highest BD and penetrometer resistance. In the surface layer, water stable aggregates (WSA) of 4.75- to 8-mm were higher in the reclaimed forest, 1- to 4.75-mm in the agricultural field, and 0.25- to 1-mm in the pasture land use. In the subsurface layer, however, WSA was higher for the agricultural field than other land uses. The mean weight diameter was the highest for the reclaimed forest in the surface layer and agricultural field in the subsurface layer. Twenty-seven years after reclamation, soil carbon stocks were the highest in reclaimed grassland soil (32 Mg ha-1) compared to natural forest, reclaimed forest and agricultural soils at 0-5cm depth. In general, the highest amount of CO2 emission was measured for the reclaimed pasture and the lowest for the natural and reclaimed forest.


Back to Carbon and Nutrient Dynamics in Soil and Water Systems
Back to S11 Soils & Environmental Quality

Back to The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 6-10, 2005)