TITLE:
Effect of Land Management on Soil Hydraulic Conductivity in Gidan Kwano, Niger State, Nigeria
AUTHORS:
John Jiya Musa, Otuaro Ebierin Akpoebidimiyen, Pius Olufemi Olusegun Dada, Johnson Kayode Adewumi, Yahaya Usman Gupa
KEYWORDS:
Bulk Density, Land Management Practices, Porosity, Soil Hydraulic Conductivity
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.11 No.2,
April
12,
2021
ABSTRACT: Hydraulic conductivity is one of the most important parameters for flow
and transport related phenomena in soil and also a criterion for measuring soil
ability to transfer water. There is concern arising from the suitability,
efficiency and ease of the different measuring methods use under different land
management practices. The purpose of this paper is to determine and evaluate
soil hydraulic conductivity under different land management practices which
include forest land (teak and Melina plantation), grassland and maize
cultivated land using the constant head method. The measurement is at different
depth of 0 - 15 cm, 15 - 25 cm, 25 - 50 cm, 50 - 75 cm. The limited means of
each land use were used to compare the result obtained through statistical
means. All tests were carried out using SPSS at a significance level of 0.05.
An ANOVA test was conducted to check if each of the land use is significantly
different. The soil in forest zone (Teak plantation and Gmalina plantation) had
a significantly high bulk density as 1.7533 cm-3 and 1.6967 cm-3 respectively at depth 50 - 75 cm compared to the low bulk density in the grass,
maize cultivated land as 1.5000 cm-3 and 1.4833 cm-3 respectively at depth 50 - 75 cm. However, soil hydraulic conductivity was
significantly high in the grass site or soil at the surface with 2.8833 cm·h-1.
Results obtained from the different land use serve as Knowledge of variability
of soil that can assist in defining the best strategies for sustainable soil
management through the provision of vital information for estimating soil
susceptibility to erosion, hydrological modelling and efficient planning of
irrigation projects.