Evaluating soil health and aggregation potential in dryland soils under diverse land uses in semiarid Pakistan

Understanding soil health and aggregation potential in dryland soils is vital for tackling global food security and environmental degradation. However, empirical evidence of such changes is limited in semiarid dryland ecosystems, highlighting the need for further research to examine the impacts of land-use changes on soil health and soil aggregation in these regions. This study explored the effects of five land use practices (forestland, agro-horticulture land, wheat cropland, grassland, and barren land) and three soil depths (0-15, 15-30, and 30-45 cm) on soil health and soil aggregation in dry semiarid regions of Pakistan. The experiment was conducted via a randomized complete block factorial design with three replications. The data were analyzed statistically via two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and correlation coefficients were calculated. The results indicate a significant increase in most soil health and soil aggregation indicators under forestland and grassland compared with those under the other land uses. Under forestland and grassland, there were significant changes in the soil organic carbon, boron, sodium, calcium, magnesium, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and exchangeable potassium contents compared with those in barren land at depths of 0-15 cm. Macroaggregates (97.2%) were greater in grasslands than in barren lands, and microaggregates (26.4%) were greater under barren land at depths of 0-15 cm. The soil fertility parameters were significantly positively correlated with each other. This study concluded that land use practices have a profound effect on soil fertility and quality traits in semiarid regions. Therefore, forest and grassland should increase in dryland semiarid regions to cope with future climate change scenarios.