Assessment Effect of Land Use Change from Rangeland to Rainfed Wheat on Soil Physical and Chemical Properties Using Soil Quality Index

Agricultural activities, especially rainfed wheat, is one of the main reason of the destruction of natural rangeland in the west of Iran. This study aimed to investigate the effect of changing natural rangeland to rainfed wheat for 40 years on some soil properties at the Saral Agricultural Research Station in Kurdistan province. Soil samples were collected from 0–25 cm depth randomly. Some soil properties such as soil texture, bulk density, mean weight diameter, cation exchange capacity, electrical conductivity, pH, calcium carbonate equivalent, total nitrogen, total organic carbon and available amount of Mg, Ca, K, P, NO3 and NH4 were measured. The results showed that land use change from rangeland to rainfed wheat significantly reduces soil quality with regard to all investigated properties except bulk density, calcium carbonate equivalent, P, K, NO3 and NH4. Determination of soil quality index (SQI) using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that total organic carbon, total nitrogen, clay and silt almost justify more than 90% of the variance, which were selected as the minimum data set in the SQI calculation. The results of SQI showed that the index was significantly higher in rangeland (1.58) than in cropland (0.72), indicating degradation of soil quality by cultivating operations.