Fruska Gora mountainous environments - assessing the impact of geological setting and land use on soil properties

Abstract

On a global scale, it was found that the surface of the vulnerable land and land affected by degradation has been increasing in the last decades and that unsustainable land management is one of the key drivers of land degradation. In order to assess the effect that these changes have on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to realize appropriate planning and management actions for the conservation of the environment, it is essential to identify and quantify changes caused by land degradation. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of the geological setting, i.e., the type of bedrock, and land use on the physicochemical properties of soil in the vulnerable mountainous areas of Fruska Gora. For the purpose of this study, 30 soil samples were collected from a depth of 0-20 cm at four locations on the Fruska Gora Mt. The geological setting was serpentinite and marl and land cover was forest and meadow. The following soil properties were determined: pH, redox potential (Eh), electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), concentrations of available cations Ca, Mg, K, Na, contents of organic carbon (Corg) and nitrogen (N). The correlation between the obtained parameters was tested with two-way ANOVA and principal component analyses (PCA). All of the obtained results indicated that the soil physicochemical properties depended on the geological setting and that rock composition has to be taken into consideration during land management.