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A comparison among root soil-conservation effects for nine herbs at the cold region highway in north-eastern China

  • Degradation, Rehabilitation, and Conservation of Soils
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Abstract

High soil-conservation herbs are very important for slope vegetation restoration of a highway in serious sandstorm regions. In this study, nine common herbs in northeast China were selected and compared to study soil-conservation effects by using an undisturbed-soil trough scouring method for soil anti-scourability enhancement and hydrostatic collapse method for soil anti-erodibility. Further, principal components analysis was used to identify significant root features that affected soil erosion resistance. Results indicated that different herbs had distinct enhancement effects on soil erosion resistance. Soil anti-scourability enhancement index decreased with increases of soil depth, slope gradient and rainfall amount. Relationship between soil anti-erodibility enhancement index (S) and immersion time (t) is a cubic spline in each different herb type (R 2 ≥ 0.88). Herb root features such as micro-aggregates, organic matter, net leaf weight, thick root length, fine root length and biomass contributed a leading role in soil erosion resistance enhancement effect, and all their common factor variances were more than 0.81. Descending order of soil erosion resistance enhancement effect in soil anti-scourability for nine herbs is Poa pratensis, Medicago sativa, Viola philippica, Rudbeckia hirta, Clematis heracleifolia, Kalimeris indica, Cosmos bipinnata, Hemerocallis fulva and Sedum elatinoides, while the sequence of soil anti-erodibility is M. sativa, S. elatinoides, P. pratensis, R. hirta, H. fulva, V. philippica, C. heracleifolia, C. bipinnata and K. indica. Therefore, we concluded that P. pratensis and M. sativa were the most suitable herbs for resisting soil erosion and recommended to be widely planted for road vegetation recovery in this region.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    X. Wang & Y. Liu

  2. College of Civil Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    W. Xu

  3. College of Landscape Architecture, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Y. Zhang

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  1. W. Xu
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  2. X. Wang
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  4. Y. Liu
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Correspondence to Y. Zhang.

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Published in Russian in Pochvovedenie, 2014, No. 12, pp. 1498–1507.

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Xu, W., Wang, X., Zhang, Y. et al. A comparison among root soil-conservation effects for nine herbs at the cold region highway in north-eastern China. Eurasian Soil Sc. 47, 1274–1282 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229314120114

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