ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Modeling Impacts of Land Uses on Carbon
and Nitrogen Contents, Carbon Dioxide
and Water Effluxes of Mediterranean Soils
Ayten Erol1, Kamil Ekinci2, Davut Akbolat2, Fatih Evrendilek3
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1Department of Watershed Management, Faculty of Forestry,
Suleyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey
2Department of Agricultural Machinery and Technologies Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture,
Suleyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey
3Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture,
Abant Izzet Baysal University, 14280 Bolu, Turkey
Submission date: 2016-02-19
Final revision date: 2016-03-18
Acceptance date: 2016-03-18
Publication date: 2016-07-22
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2016;25(4):1479-1487
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ABSTRACT
Local alterations of land uses by policy, planning, and management decisions have global implications
for coupled biogeochemical cycles. Quantification and prediction of impacts of land-use changes on carbon
(C), nitrogen (N), and water (H2O) cycles are of great significance, in particular to the Mediterranean
ecosystems that are already vulnerable to climate change. The present study was aimed at empirically
modeling the four response variables of soil carbon (SC), nitrogen (SN) contents, carbon dioxide (CO2),
and H2O effluxes as a function of the 10 predictors of land use type (forest, grassland, cropland, and their
degraded states), soil organic matter, soil moisture, silt, clay and sand fractions, pH, electrical conductivity,
soil microorganisms, and soil temperature. Our results showed that soil respiration rate was highest
for cropland and lowest for forest (p = 0.002). Land use type was found to be the primary control
and significantly related linearly to SC, SN, and soil CO2 efflux and non-linearly to all the responses.
Goodness-of-fit and predictive power of the best-fit multiple non-linear regression (MNLR) models varied
between 80.8% for soil CO2 efflux and 99.9% for SC, and between 67.4% for soil CO2 efflux and 99.1%
for SN, respectively.