Establishment of a minimum dataset and soil quality assessment for multiple reclaimed areas on a wind-eroded region

•Soil quality can be improved after more than sixty years of land use change from forested to grazing land. Soil quality was found to be the highest in the apple orchard area.•Cultivated and apple orchard land use increased soil quality index.•Changes in soil quality of forest and pasture areas are different. About 60 years ago, overgrazing, of severe wind erosion in Konya-Karapınar region, which is in an arid semi-arid ecosystem. In this context, an effective fight against desertification was carried out with different land management practices for erosion control. The aim of this study is to establish a minimum dataset of soil properties determine the impact of different land uses on the soil quality index (SQI). Therefore, soil properties of five different land use types [i.e.(Forested land (FL), Grazing land (GL), Cultivated land (CL), Apple orchard (AO) and Erosive area (EA))] in the wind erosion affected area were evaluated. In the study, a total of 264 disturbed and undisturbed samples were taken from three different depths (0–10, 10–20 and 20–40 cm). On these samples, Physical [field capacity (FC), wilting point (WP), bulk density, Aggregate Stability (AS), Penetration Resistance (PR)], chemical [pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC), Lime (L), Total Nitrogen (TN), Available P (AP), Ca, Mg, Na, K, exchangeable Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn Cation exchange capacity (CEC), Exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP)], and biological [Organic Carbon (OC), Active Carbon (AC), Potential Mineralizable Nitrogen (PMN), Respiration (S)] analyses were carried out. According to principal component analysis, FC, AS, ESP, CEC, AP, OC, R were selected indicators. Scoring functions of the selected indicators were created and each indicator was scored separately. Accordingly, for 0–40 cm soil depth, SQI was calculated as EA 0.10, FL 0.38, GL 0.45, CL 0.67 and AO 0.70. There have been significant improvements in soil quality compared to the EA, however, the amount of improvement has been more limited in graze and forest lands. It has been suggested that the selected indicators should be considered as the change-sensitive properties of the soils in the study area and similar areas, and that more areas should be allocated for horticulture in erosion protection areas.