Deforestation effects on soil quality and water retention curve parameters in eastern Ardabil, Iran

The land use change from natural to managed ecosystems causes serious soil degradation. The main objective of this research was to assess deforestation effects on soil physical quality attributes and soil water retention curve (SWRC) parameters in the Fandoghlou region of Ardabil province, Iran. Totally 36 surface and subsurface soil samples were taken and soil water contents measured at 13 suctions. Alfa (α) and n parameters in van Genuchten (1980) model were estimated by fitting SWRC data by using RETC software. The slope of SWRC at inflection point (S P ) was calculated by Dexter (2004) equation. The results indicated that with changing land use from forest (F) to range land (R) and cultivated land (C), and also with increasing soil depth from 0–25 to 75–100 cm in each land use, organic carbon, micropores, saturated and available water contents decreased and macropores and bulk density increased significantly ( P < 0.05). The position of SWRC shape in F was higher than R and C lands at all soil depths. Changing F to R and C lands and also increasing soil depth in each land use significantly ( P < 0.05) increased α and decreased n and S P . The average values of S P were obtained 0.093, 0.051 and 0.031 for F, R and C, respectively. As a result, deforestation reduced soil physical quality by affecting SWRC parameters.