Effects of land use changes for ecological restoration on soil moisture on the Chinese Loess Plateau: a meta-analytical approach

Soil moisture is an important resource for plant growth on the arid and semi-arid Loess Plateau of China where the “Grain for Green” project was launched in 1999, but there has been no systematic evaluation of soil moisture from the effects of ecological restoration at a regional scale. We systematically assessed 63 published studies during 2000–2015, including 2050 observations at 68 sites on the Loess Plateau with the aim of determining soil moisture changes and the factors influencing those changes. We found that, after land use conversion, soil moisture decreased by 17% in the upper 100 cm soil layer and that tree plantations and shrub lands appeared to cause soil moisture depletion which became increasingly serious with soil depth. The decrease of soil moisture was significantly influenced by the planting species in all restoration types (tree plantations, shrub lands, and grasslands). We also found that tree plantations and grasslands converted from farmlands consumed more soil moisture than from wasteland (including bare land, abandoned land and wild grasslands). Artificial restoration led to significant soil moisture reduction, but natural restoration had little effect on soil moisture. Therefore, natural restoration should be an alternative restoration practice on the Loess Plateau. These results will provide helpful information for artificial afforestation and planning ecological restoration campaigns for policy makers on water-limited regions.