ASSESSMENT OF ORGANIC CARBON AND ITS COMPONENTS IN DIFFERENT GYPSIFEROUS SOILS USED FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES IN SALAH AL-DIN GOVERNORATE USING THE CARBON MANAGEMENT INDEX
Keywords:
CMI 1, TOC 2, POC 3, MOC 4Abstract
Changes in land use and land cover directly affect the total organic carbon in soil and its health. This study, conducted in Salah al-Din/Tikrit Governorate, aimed to assess differences in total organic carbon (TOC), particulate organic carbon (POC), mineral-associated organic carbon (MOC), and carbon management index (CMI) across four land use types: vegetable crops (L1), unused land (L2), wheat and barley crops (L3), and land planted with shrubs (L4). The study also sought to test the validity of the CMI in detecting soil degradation or improvement following changes in land use. The results showed significant differences between the different patterns. Vegetable lands (L1) recorded the highest values for POC and MOC compared to unused lands (L2), while wheat and barley lands (L3) and shrub lands (L4) had intermediate values. TOC also achieved the highest value in L1 (14.43 g kg⁻¹), compared to the lowest level in L2 (5.33 g kg⁻¹) due to the absence of vegetation cover. No significant differences were found between L3 and L4, but they were lower than L1 and higher than L2. The carbon management index (CMI) at a depth of 0–15 cm reached its highest level in L1 (57.75%), followed by L3 (43.77%) and then L4 (27.99%), while unused land recorded the lowest value (21.34%). The results indicate that intensive cultivation of vegetable crops contributes to improving soil properties, while uncultivated land suffers from a clear deterioration in organic matter and nutrient depletion.
References
Alatawi, M., Alhajoj, Y. A. A., & Abdullah, R. M. (2024). Evaluation of the performance of several cultivars of bean (Vicia faba L.) for yield and its components under three different cultivation distances. Tikrit Journal for Agricultural Sciences, 24(3), 256-266.
Al-Duliami, A. A. K., Altai, S. H., & Ismaeal, A. S. (2020). Impact study of slope aspect in the boilogical crust properties of some gypsiferous soils using remote sensing and GIS. Plant Archives (09725210), 20(2).
Altai, S. H. M., & Yousif, H. M. (2024). Evaluation of the Biological and Chemical Properties of Compost Prepared from Different Plants Sources Taken from the University of Tikrit. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 1371, No. 9, p. 092002). IOP Publishing.
Altai, S. H., AL-Hamandi, H. M., Khairo, A. M., Ali, O. N., & Ortas, I. (2025). Effect of Mycorrhizal fungi inoculation on the water consumptive use, growth, and yield of barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.) under drought stress in Gypsifereous soil. Tikrit Journal for Agricultural Sciences, 25(2), 177-190.
Araújo, L. G., de Sousa, D. M. G., de Figueiredo, C. C., Rein, T. A., de Souza Nunes, R., dos Santos, J. D. D. G., & Malaquias, J. V. (2019). How does gypsum increase the organic carbon stock of an Oxisol profile under sugarcane?. Geoderma, 343, 196-204.
Benbi, D. K., Brar, K., Toor, A. S., & Singh, P. (2015). Total and labile pools of soil organic carbon in cultivated and undisturbed soils in northern India. Geoderma, 237, 149-158.
Blair, G. J., Lefroy, R. D., & Lisle, L. (1995). Soil carbon fractions based on their degree of oxidation, and the development of a carbon management index for agricultural systems. Australian journal of agricultural research, 46(7), 1459-1466.
Cao, H., Zhao, X., Wang, S., Zhao, L., Duan, J., Zhang, Z., ... & Zhu, X. (2015). Grazing intensifies degradation of a Tibetan Plateau alpine meadow through plant–pest interaction. Ecology and Evolution, 5(12), 2478-2486.
de Carvalho, M., Ciarkowska, K., & Miechówka, A. (2023). Storage of persistent organic matter in temperate gypsum soils–Relevance of the parent material and vegetation cover. Geoderma, 435, 116522.
Farhan, M. J., Khalefah, K. M., Altai, S. H. M., & Alsajri, F. A. (2022). The Impact of Inoculation with Azotobacter and Azospirillum Bacteria and Chemical Fertilizer on Barley Growth (Hordeum Vulgare L.). In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 1060, No. 1, p. 012001). IOP Publishing.
Franzluebbers, A. J., Stuedemann, J. A., Schomberg, H. H., & Wilkinson, S. R. (2000). Soil organic C and N pools under long-term pasture management in the Southern Piedmont USA. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 32(4), 469-478.
Gelaw, A. M., Singh, B. R., & Lal, R. (2015). Organic carbon and nitrogen associated with soil aggregates and particle sizes under different land uses in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Land Degradation & Development, 26(7), 690-700.
Gerritse, R. G., & Van Driel, W. (1984). The relationship between adsorption of trace metals, organic matter, and pH in temperate soils (Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 197-204). American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.
Jackson, R. B., Canadell, J., Ehleringer, J. R., Mooney, H. A., Sala, O. E., & Schulze, E. D. (1996). A global analysis of root distributions for terrestrial biomes. Oecologia, 108(3), 389-411.
Jobbágy, E. G., & Jackson, R. B. (2000). The vertical distribution of soil organic carbon and its relation to climate and vegetation. Ecological applications, 10(2), 423-436.
Khalaf, A. A., Ismaeal, A. S., & Altai, S. H. (2021). Evaluation and Biological properties maps of Gypsiferous Soil using Geomatic techniques, Tikrit city, Salahaldin, Iraq. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 735, No. 1, p. 012067). IOP Publishing.
Lal, R. (2004). Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security. science, 304(5677), 1623-1627.
Lal, R. (2008). Carbon sequestration. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1492), 815-830.
Lalitha, M., & Kumar, P. (2016). Soil carbon fractions influenced by temperature sensitivity and land use management. Agroforestry Systems, 90(6), 961-964
Liu, J. B., Zhang, Y. Q., Wu, B., Qin, S. G., & Lai, Z. R. (2014). Changes in soil organic carbon and its density fractions after shrub—planting for desertification control. Polish Journal of Ecology, 62(2), 205-216.
Maina, J. G. (2013). Mainstreaming sustainable land management in agropastoral production systems of Kenya: Dadaab district baseline survey report.
Mganga, K. Z., Musimba, N. K., Nyariki, D. M., Nyangito, M. M., Ekaya, W. N., Muiru, W. M., & Mwang’ombe, A. W. (2011). Different land use types in the semi-arid rangelands of Kenya influence soil properties.
Page, A. L. (Ed.). (1982). Methods of soil analysis. Part 2. Chemical and microbiological properties (pp. 1159-pp).
Plante, A. F., Conant, R. T., Stewart, C. E., Paustian, K., & Six, J. (2006). Impact of soil texture on the distribution of soil organic matter in physical and chemical fractions. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 70(1), 287-296.
Richards, L. A. (Ed.). (1954). Diagnosis and improvement of saline and alkali soils (No. 60). US Government Printing Office.
Rumpel, C., & Kögel-Knabner, I. (2011). Deep soil organic matter—a key but poorly understood component of terrestrial C cycle. Plant and soil, 338(1), 143-158.
Sainepo, B. M., Gachene, C. K., & Karuma, A. (2018). Assessment of soil organic carbon fractions and carbon management index under different land use types in Olesharo Catchment, Narok County, Kenya. Carbon balance and management, 13(1), 4.
Singh, P., Sharma, S., Nisar, S., & Choudhary, O. P. (2023). Structural stability and organic matter stabilization in soils: Differential impacts of soil salinity and sodicity. Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 23(2), 1751-1773.
Tandon, A., Bannykh, S., Kowalchyk, J. A., Banerjee, A., Martin, T. F., & Balch, W. E. (1998). Differential regulation of exocytosis by calcium and CAPS in semi-intact synaptosomes. Neuron, 21(1), 147-154.
Wang, Q., Zhang, L., Li, L., Bai, Y., Cao, J., & Han, X. (2009). Changes in carbon and nitrogen of Chernozem soil along a cultivation chronosequence in a semi‐arid grassland. European Journal of Soil Science, 60(6), 916-923.
Were, K., Bui, D. T., Dick, Ø. B., & Singh, B. R. (2015). A comparative assessment of support vector regression, artificial neural networks, and random forests for predicting and mapping soil organic carbon stocks across an Afromontane landscape. Ecological Indicators, 52, 394-403.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
CC BY
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
