Soil Water Vegetation Carrying Capacity

Soil water vegetation carrying capacity is the ability of soil water resources per unity to support the vegetation. Vegetation includes different plant population plant community, expressed by the population or plant density of indicator plant in a plant community. The indicator plant is construction species in a plant community for nature vegetation or cultivated plant species.

The research on soil water vegetation carrying capacity had gone through a long time, which can be divided into three stages: The preparatory phase of soil water vegetation carrying capacity at preparation stage, the occurrence of soil water vegetation carrying capacity and the establishment of theory of soil water vegetation carrying capacity and the practice of soil water vegetation carrying capacity. expressed by the number of plant population or plant density of indicator plant in a plant population or community. The indicator plant is the constructive species for nature vegetation and goal or cultivated species.

Preparatory phase of soil water vegetation carrying capacity

The term carrying capacity has come from the doctrine of Thomas Robert Malthus, who considered that society had the ability to increase agricultural production only at an arithmetic rate but the number of people to be fed increased at a geometric rate. Therefore, to some degree, population was likely to exceed food supplies, with calamitous results [1].

The concept of carrying capacity was first used by range managers [2] and U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers (Young,1995). After Verhulst proposed logistic equations in 1838, Eugene Odum (1953) equated the term carrying capacity with the constant K in logistic equations, see equation 1:

Where N(t) is density at time t, the population per unit area at time t, r is the intrinsic growth rate, r > 0 and K is an asymptote (the carrying capacity) with K > 0.

The occurrence of soil water vegetation carrying capacity

The concepts of soil water vegetation carrying capacity is first proposed by Guo et al. [3] in 2000 to solve serious drying of soil, the serious drying of soil eventually result in soil degradation, vegetation decline and agriculture failure.

Vegetation carrying capacity can be defined as the ability of land or nature resources to support vegetation. Because Vegetation includes different plant population or communities, and plant communities consist of different plant species within a region or a country, of course, vegetation carrying capacity include rice carrying capacity.

Vegetation carrying capacity was first proposed by Guo [3] and so [4] on in 2000. Some plant communities are formed by a single plant species, called plant population, and others are formed by many plant species that live together and form the community to use space (solar energy and temperature), soil water or soil nutrient. Soil nutrients include soil nitrogen, soil potassium and soil phosphorus and so on. So, vegetation carrying capacity includes space vegetation carrying capacity, the carrying capacity of land or space resources for vegetation; soil water carrying capacity for vegetation (SWCCV), the carrying capacity of soil water resources for vegetation, and soil nutrient carrying capacity for vegetation (SNCCV), the carrying capacity of soil nutrient resources for vegetation. SNCCV can be subdivided into soil nitrogen or potassium or phosphorus carrying capacity for vegetation and so on.

At this stage, Verhulst developed a general equation for population growth in 1838. Odum related the carrying capacity and the asymptotes K value Asymptotes of the logistic equation in 1953 (Young, 1998) [2]. Prof. Su [5] put forward the optimal litter amount on the floor of artificial forest in 1988 [5]. According to the optimal litter amount, Guo put forward the optimal cutting rate for headwater conservation forest, which showed that in the cultivation process of artificial forest, the plant growth and resources relation should be regulated according to the vegetation carrying capacity [3].

With the increase of population and economic and social development, there is an increasing demand for the quantity and variety of forest ecosystem products and services, but the land ecosystem products and services produced by the original vegetation cannot meet the need. To meet these kinds of demands, most of the original vegetation all over the world has become plantation, grass land, crop and orchard, especially on Loess plateau, China.

Since 1950, afforestation has been carried out in the Loess Plateau, especially the construction of the “Three North” shelterbelt system, which began in 1978 [6]. As plant grow in the forest, the plant resources relationship changed from equilibrium relation between plant growth and resources use to non-equilibrium relation, which will lead to soil degradation, vegetation decline and crops failure because of plant because of overload, plant density is more than or waste of nature resources because of low load.

In the 1960s, the underlying desiccated soil layer was discovered successively in semi-arid farmland such as in the eastern Wei bei Plateau of Shaanxi Province, artificial grassland in the sub-humid area of Guanzhong plain and Ziw ling forest area in the sub-humid area of Longdong in the eastern part of Gansu, China. This phenomenon attracted the attention of many scholars [7,4] and so on. In 1968, dozens of scientists, educators, economists and other scholars from around the world met in Rome and founded the Club OF Rome. The goal of its work is to focus on, explore and study the common problems faced by mankind, so that the international community can have a deeper understanding of the plight of mankind, including social, economic and environmental problems, and put forward new attitudes, new policies and new systems that should be adopted to reverse the unfavorable situation. Commissioned by the Club and led by Dennis L Meadows of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the group rethought the long-prevailing Western theory of high growth and submitted its 1972 “Limits to Growth” study, which profoundly clarified the importance of the environment and the fundamental link between resources and population, and showing that natural resources is limit such as soil water resources in water-limited regions.so it is necessary to regulate the plant water relation at right time to reduce some plant in plantation, grass and crops in water limited region. The soil water vegetation carrying capacity is one of theoretical foundation of plant water relation [8].

In order to solve the soil degradation, vegetation decline and crops failure or waste of nature resources and realize the sustainable utilization of soil water resources and the agriculture high quality development, Guo put forward the concept of soil water vegetation carrying capacity in 2000 [3]. After that, Guo defined the soil water vegetation carrying capacity [9] and put forward the estimating method of soil water vegetation carrying capacity [10] and the initial stage to regulation plant growth and the soil water [10] and establish the theory of Soil Water Vegetation Carrying Capacity (SWVCC).

The soil water vegetation carrying capacity in the future

Soil water vegetation carrying capacity is the ability of soil water resources per unity to support the vegetation. Vegetation includes different plant population plant community, expressed by the population or plant density of indicator plant in a plant community. The indicator plant is construction species in a plant community for nature vegetation or cultivated plant species.

Because there is huge land area of forest, grass and farmland and there are a lot of site condition, the climate changes with time, and different plant species have different need for site conditions in the water-limited regions, we have to strengthen the soil water vegetation carrying capacity, especially the soil water vegetation carrying capacity in the key period of plant water relationship regulation [11], and then take effective measures or methods to ensure sustainable use of soil water resources, plant growth well, get the cultivated goal and obtain the maximum yield and effect to meet the people’s yearning for a better life and the needs of agricultural production and increase new quality productivity [12- 20].

1. Steiguer JED (1995) Three theories from economics about the environment. Bioscience 45(8): 552-557.
2. Price D (1999) Carrying capacity reconsidered. Popul Enviro 21: 5-26.
3. Guo ZS, Shao M, Zhang YP, Wu QX (2002) An layer-dividing approach to the soil water in forest land, the proceedings of soil physics and ecological environmental construction, pp. 74-79.
4. Yang WZ, Shao MA (2000) Study on soil moisture in Loess Plateau. Chinese Science Press, pp. 30-114.
5. Su NH (1988) Discussion on the method of determining the optimum accumulation of litter in forest land. Acta Ecologica Sinica (2): 147-158.
6. Wu QX, Yang WZ (1998) Vegetation construction and sustainable development on the Loess Plateau. Chinese Science Press.
7. Guo ZS (2021) Soil water carrying capacity for vegetation. Land Degradation Development 32(14): 3801-3811.
8. Guo Z, Shao M (2003) Vegetation carrying capacity of soil water and soil desiccation in artificial forestry and grassland in the semiarid regions of Loess Plateau. Chin J ECOL 23: 1640-1647.
9. Guo Z, Shao M (2004) Mathematical model for determining vegetation carrying capacity of soil water. J Hydr 35(10): 95-99.
10. Guo ZS, Li YL (2009) Initiation stage to regulate the caragana growth and soil water in the semiarid area of Loess Hilly Region, China. Chin J Ecol 29: 5721-5729.
11. Guo Z (2022) High-quality development of agriculture, Encyclopedic Forum (10): 64-66.
12. Guo ZS (1991) An Approach to the method of the optimal cutting rate for headwater conservation forest. Protection and management of mountain forests. Science press, Beijing, New York, USA, pp. 194-199.
13. Guo ZS (2010) Soil water resource use limit in semi-arid loess hilly area. Chin J App Eco 21(12): 3029-3035.
14. Guo ZS (2011) A review of soil water carrying capacity for vegetation in water-limited regions. Scientia Silvae Sinicae 47(5): 140-144.
15. Guo ZS, Shao MA (2013) Impact of afforestation density on soil and water conservation of the semiarid Loess Plateau, China. J Soil Water Conserv 68(5): 401-410.
16. Guo Z (2019) Rice carrying capacity and sustainable produce of rice in resources-limited regions. Int J Agric Sc Food Technol 5(1): 054-057.
17. Guo Z (2020) Estimating method of maximum infiltration depth and soil water supply. Sci Rep 10(1): 9726.
18. Guo Z (2021) Soil hydrology process and sustainable use of soil water resources in desert regions. Water 13(17): 2377.
19. Guo ZS (2014) Theory and practice on soil water carrying capacity for vegetation. Chinese Science Press.
20. Guo ZS (2023) Forest restoration, resources sustainable use and high-quality sustainable management 2023 Global Journal of Ecology 8(1): 7-10.