Relationship between drylands development and some soil properties

Land degradation and changing rangeland to dryland has important effects on ecosystems and soil properties. This process decline soil structure and increases runoff and erosion. Because of increasing manipulation in Iran rangelands, this research was conducted to study the effects of land use change from rangeland to dryland and abandoned dryland, on the basis of some soil factors including clay, silt and sand percent and mean weight diameter (MWD) of soil aggregates in western Iran, Zagros rangelands. Soil samples were collected in August 2016 from two depths of 0–20 and 20–50 cm in three land uses. Findings showed that this land use change affected soil properties significantly as in dryland clay, silt percent and mean weight diameter of soil aggregates were reduced and sand percent was increased. In abandoned drylands soil properties will improve gradually. Finally according to our results land use changes affected soil characteristics and this can be used in ecosystem management. © 2019, Society for Plant Research.