Investigation on the Effects of Biomechanical Water and Soil Conservation Practices on some Soil Properties (Case study: Upstream Mountains of Gorgan-roud catchment)

After the destructive floods in Golestan Province during the early seventies, numerous biomechanical practices were performed in order to the restoration of vegetation cover and affecting the runoff in the main cluster of Gorganrood river, so the extensive studies are necessaire for the evaluation of their results. The goal of this study was to evaluate the changes in some physicochemical properties of soils following biomechanical practices as compared with the control area in dasht kalpush that is one of the Gorgan-roud sub-catchments. After land units mapping, soil samples (75 samples) were taken from a land unit that has restored (furrowing and Atriplex spp plantation) and control areas. In each treatment (inside furrows and under the Atriplex spp canopy cover, between furrows and control area), five soil samples in five slope positions (summit, shoulder slope, back slope, foot slope, toe slope) were taken at the depth of 0-15 cm (totally 25 soil samples in each treatment) and in the laboratory, some physicochemical properties of soils were measured. Data analysis was performed using the ANOVA and the tukey test that was conducted with SPSS (18.0) software. The results demonstrated that the percentage of soil saturated moisture and soil stability have significantly decreased in the treatment of inside furrows compared with control treatment and the percentage of soil clay particles has significantly increased, either.