RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VEGETATION COVERAGE AND SOIL PROPERTIES ON THE RECLAIMED DUMP OF OPENCAST COAL MINE IN LOESS PLATEAU, CHINA

Vegetation recovery and soil restoration are the keys to create a stable and sustainable ecosystem on post-mining lands. The relationships between vegetation coverage and soil properties were studied, by taking a reclaimed dump of opencast coal mine in Loess Plateau as example. Vegetation coverage was represented by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and eight soil properties of soil samples were measured. The relationships between NDVI and each soil property were identified by correlation analysis. The results were as follows. Soil bulk density and NDVI was negatively linearly correlated. Soil porosity and NDVI was positively linearly correlated. Soil mass water content was quadratically correlated with NDVI, so as soil gravel content and soil total nitrogen content. Both the logarithm of soil organic matter content and the logarithm of soil available potassium showed a correlation of cubic function with NDVI. Soil available phosphorus content and NDVI can be described with inverse function. It was concluded that the response of vegetation coverage to soil properties showed discontinuity in a certain degree, and each response is different from others when soil properties change within a certain range.