Soil Properties of a Tropical Savannah in the Eastern Ghats of India

Rachna Chandra, Narayanan Ganesan, Belasenti Anjan Kumar Prusty, Parapurath Abdul Azeez

Environmental Impact Assessment Division, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore, India..

DOI: 10.4236/ojss.2012.24042                

Abstract

As an outcome of globalization and liberalization of economic policies, exploration for and mining of minerals have become one of the recent lucrative trades in India. Due to stringent environment legislations, reclamation and reforestation of the mined out sites have become obligatory. Information on distribution of nutrients before and after mining provides valuable insights while developing and executing the strategy for reclamation and revegetation of the mined out sites. Successful mine reclamation plan chiefly requires information on the soil characteristics in the area during its natural state. With this aim, investigations into spatial and temporal variations in soil nutrients and other physico-chemical parameters among three proposed bauxite mine locations near Araku valley, India were conducted. Soil samples were collected every three months for two years. At each location, samples from three sites in triplicates from four successive layers (0 - 5 cm, 5 - 10 cm, 10 - 15 cm and 15 - 20 cm depth) were collected. Concentrations of Total Organic Carbon (TOC), Total Nitrogen (TN), Total Available Phosphorous (TAP), Total Available Sulphur (TAS), C:N, C:P, and C:S decreased along the soil layers, while N:P increased. All the parameters studied varied significantly among months (GLM-ANOVA, P < 0.05). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) done on the soil physico-chemical dataset showed first 5 components (Eigen Value > 1) explaining 87.3% of the total variance. Of these, the first component accounted for 21.0% and the second for 20.1% of the total variance. The principal components represented C:N/Soil N, C:P/Soil P/N:P, EC, Soil S/C:S and Soil C axes, respectively.

Keywords

Araku; Bauxite; Nutrients; Physico-Chemical Properties

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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