Non-scientific and unconscious changes in land use have negative impacts on ‎the soil physical and chemical properties. In this research, the effect of land use ‎changes on some soil physical and chemical properties was investigated. For this propose, three site
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Non-scientific and unconscious changes in land use have negative impacts on ‎the soil physical and chemical properties. In this research, the effect of land use ‎changes on some soil physical and chemical properties was investigated. For this propose, three sites in three ‎‎‎adjacent land use ‎types including pasture, forest and‏ ‏agricultural‏ ‏lands were randomly selected in region of Baneh, ‎‎‎‎‎Kurdistan ‎province. Disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were collected from three sites at each of the different land use types from depths of 0–15 and 15–30 cm ‎and were analysed in the laboratory‎. The results indicated that land use changes have no significant effects on the percentage of sand, silt and clay. Change in the land use type caused increase in bulk density and decrease in total porosity, soil hydraulic conductivity and aggregate stability. The ‎most percentage of coarse aggregates (0.25-8 mm) and fine aggregates (0.053-0.25 mm) was found in forest ‎and ‎agricultural land, respectively. Land use change caused increase in electrical conductivity and ‎soil reaction which increases with depth too. The results also indicated that land use change significantly decreases the amount of soil organic carbon. The average of soil organic carbon in forest, agricultural land and pastures were 4.99, 2.26 and 1.79%, respectively. In general, the results of this research showed that changes in land use has adverse effects on the soil physical and chemical properties that can result in reducing soil quality and increasing its degradation.
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