The effect of land use structure on the distribution of soil nutrients in the hilly area of the Loess Plateau, China

The irrational land use is one of the main reasons for the soil erosion and nutrient loss in the loess hilly area of China. In this project, 4 types of typical land use structure of sustain ment for about 15 years in the loess hill slope are selected to study the effect of land use structure on the distribution of soil nutrients. From hill bottom to hill top, the patterns of land use types are: grassland-slope farmland-forest, slope farmland-grassland-forest, terrace-grassland-forest and slope farmland-forest-grassland. By measuring the contents of the total N, total P, available N, available P and organic matter of soils, the results show that the land use structure types of slope farmland-grassland-forest and terrace-grassland-forest have a better capacity to maintain the soil nutrients.