Effect of different vegetation types on infiltration and soil water retention

Abstract

The objective of this study was to measure and compare soil-water infiltration, soil water retention and bulk density at three soil depths of non-carbonate silty clay gleyic fluvisol in the Kolubara river valley (West Serbia) under natural deciduous forest and meadow vegetation and the adjacent gleyic fluvisol used for more than 100 years as cultivated soil, with the same site conditions. Five infiltration measurement were made in each of three treatments. The results showes that the forest soil has the highest steady infiltration rate. The infiltration rate for the forest was about 2.5 times higher compared with the meadow and about 6 times higher compared with the cultivated soil. The soil water content for a selected pressure was the highest in the forest soil in the 0-15 cm depth compared with the meadow and cultivated soils. The meadow and cultivated soils did not show any significant (P lt 0.05) difference in soil water content at the 0.0, -33 and -1500 kPa pressure. Results show that the forest soil can accept and store more available water than meadow and cultivated soils in the 0-30 cm depth.