Distribution, typology and assessment of degraded soils Piedmont Plains Zhetysu Ridge, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Identification of land degradation is essential to check the problem and to implementthe remedial measures needed. The study area falls under parts of foothill plainsZhetysu Ridge, Kazakhstan, that is an arid region in climate. Recent data on the status ofstudy area refer to the 80s of the last century, and the intensive use of them led to asignificant anthropogenic transformation. This study was carried out in 2015-2016 aspart of a project aimed to study features and causes of land degradation in foothillplains Zhetysu Ridge, Kazakhstan. Under the conditions of rainfed soil degradationmanifests itself in the development of erosion processes, agro depletion of soils,reducing the productivity of agriculture. The use of land for irrigation oftenaccompanied by secondary salinization. In this regard, at present there is need toassess current state of the soil, with the identification of changes in their properties as aresult of the impact of various anthropogenic factors and creation of new electronic soilmaps and applied the powerful capabilities of advanced remote sensing (RS) andgeographic information system (GIS) techniques to identify the geomorphological unitsand degradation risk assessment. Satellite imagery in addition to the field andlaboratory studies to identify salinity-induced soil degradation was adopted in thisstudy. Morphological, chemical and physical characteristics of soils in degraded sites infoothill plains Zhetysu Ridge, Kazakhstan, were depicted. The main results of athorough evaluation of soil degradation in foothill plains Zhetysu Ridge, Kazakhstan,are presented. The data revealed that extent of salinity-induced degradation wasgenerally related to some physical properties of soil, uncontrolled livestock grazing andprevious soil management practices. These results are useful as the basis for designingsoil conservation and restoration programs, as a base line for evaluating theperformance of conservation programs and for assessing the impact of other soilrelated activities (e.g. agriculture and livestock rising).