Soil forming processes visible 30 years after the primary and secondary forest succession in post-mining and post-fire area
- 1University of Agriculture in Krakow, Department of Soil Science and Agrophysics, Kraków, Poland (agnieszka.jozefowska@urk.edu.pl)
- 2University of Agriculture in Krakow, Department of Ecology and Silviculture, Kraków, Poland
- 3University of Agriculture in Krakow, Department of Ecological Engineering and Forest Hydrology, Kraków, Poland
In the Anthropocene era, human activity has very often caused large-scale degradation of entire ecosystems including the soil, with attempts to restore the degraded areas to their ecological functions. Human intervention consisting of afforestation with various tree species initiates and accelerates the long-term process of primary succession in post-mining sites and secondary succession on sites following large-scale disturbances caused by fires.
The advances of soil formation process were investigated in reclaimed areas. Variants afforested with different tree species located in post-mining and post-fire area were investigated. The research plots have been replanted with various tree species, Pinus sylvestris L., Larix decidua Mill., Betula pendula Roth, and Quercus robur L. First research area was opencast sand mine where primary succession supported by afforestation occurs (SM). Second place was reclaimed areas after a large scale fire with secondary succession supported by afforestation. In post-fire place were investigated two variants with (PF_C) and without (PF) pyrogenic (charcoal) carbon present in soil. Each combination of tree and place were investigated in one soil profile and three additional soil cores collected from 0-90 cm, what gave four repetitions of each variant. Soils were characterised on the basis of the World Reference Base (WRB) and their basic properties such as pH, organic carbon and total nitrogen content, sorption properties and grain size distribution were determined.
Studies in transformed areas such as post-mining or post-fire are focusing mainly on the topsoil, in presented research the main goal was to determine what are the differences in pedogenesis in mentioned above scenarios.
There were slight differences in the thickness of humus horizons (H) in soils under investigated variants. The thickness of H horizons was higher in plots in post-fire in PF_C variant compared to PF and SM. In SM were noted that the highest thickness of H horizon occurs under Larch. In post-mining areas under each tree species occurs Arenosols in post-fire areas occurs Podzols.
This research was funded by The National Science Centre, Poland, grant No. 2021/42/E/ST10/00248.
How to cite: Józefowska, A., Ogar, W., Thị Hồng, V. T., Wanic, T., Woś, B., and Pietrzykowski, M.: Soil forming processes visible 30 years after the primary and secondary forest succession in post-mining and post-fire area, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13700, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13700, 2023.
