Soil Degradation Processes Linked to Long-Term Forest-Type Damage

Abstract

Forest degradation impairs ability of the whole landscape adaptation to environmental change. The impacts of forest degradation on landscape are caused by a self-organization decline. At the present time, the self-organization decline was largely due to nitrogen deposition and deforestation which exacerbated impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, forest degradation processes are either reversible or irreversible. Irreversible forest degradation begins with soil damage. In this paper, we present processes of forest soil degradation in relation to vulnerability of regulation adaptability on global environmental change. The regulatory forest capabilities were indicated through soil organic matter sequestration dynamics. We devided the degradation processes into quantitative and qualitative damages of physical or chemical soil properties. Quantitative soil degradation includes irreversible loss of an earth’s body after claim, erosion or desertification, while qualitative degradation consists of predominantly reversible consequences after soil disintegration, leaching, acidification, salinization and intoxication. As a result of deforestation, the forest soil vulnerability is spreading through quantitative degradation replacing hitherto predominantly qualitative changes under continuous vegetation cover. Increasing needs to natural resources using and accompanying waste pollution destroy soil self-organization through biodiversity loss, simplification in functional links among living forms and substance losses from ecosystem. We concluded that subsequent irreversible changes in ecosystem self-organization cause a change of biome potential natural vegetation and the land usability decrease.