Soil Management and Restoration 8 Mary I

Soil Management and Restoration 8 Mary I. Williams, Cara L. Farr, Deborah S. Page-Dumroese, Stephanie J. Connolly, and Eunice Padley Introduction directly and indirectly. Rises in temperature affect decompo- sition and nutrient cycling, biological populations, and soil The destruction of soil is the most fundamental kind of eco- hydrologic functions. Flooding is a natural disturbance in nomic loss which the human race can suffer.—The Essential riparian and floodplain ecosystems, but flood sizes and fre- Aldo Leopold: Quotations and Commentaries quencies have been altered by human influences through Soils sequester carbon (C), store and regulate water, cycle damming and channelizing rivers, draining wetlands, and nutrients, regulate temperatures, decompose and filter waste, deforesting floodplains, so that most flooding now often and support life (Dominati et al. 2010). We depend, and will exceeds the natural range of variation. continue to depend, on these ecosystem services provided by As natural resources become limited, the value of man- soils, services that are products of interactions between and aging and restoring aboveground and belowground pro- among abiotic and biotic properties and that are the founda- cesses becomes more important. Sustainable soil tion for self-maintenance in an ecosystem (SER 2004). management involves the concepts of using, improving, But, soil is a limited resource. It takes thousands of years and restoring the productive capacity and processes of soil to develop soil, yet it can lose its productive capacity and (Lal and Stewart 1992), and we can use ecological restora- ecological integrity in a fraction of that time as the result of tion, which is intimately linked with soil management, to human activities or natural events (Heneghan et al. 2008; ameliorate degraded and disturbed resources, reverse the Hillel 2004). The impacts of management actions and natu- trends of soil degradation, and enhance soil properties to ral events can remain on the landscape for decades and lon- regain ecosystem health. Ecological restoration is one of ger, leaving land use and historical legacies (Foster et al. several actions that can ameliorate degraded and disturbed 2003; Morris et al. 2014) that can cause profound ecological soils, defined as “the process of assisting the recovery of an and economic consequences from lost farm, pasture, or for- ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” est productivity. Furthermore, climate shifts and environ- (SER 2004). The practice of ecological restoration draws mental stressors affect soil properties and functions, both from and integrates many disciplines from agronomy to wildlife management and from engineering to indigenous knowledge. M. I. Williams (*) Concerns about ecosystem services (e.g., food, water, Nez Perce Tribe Wildlife Division, Lapwai, ID, USA energy, biodiversity conservation) within the context of a e-mail: [email protected] changing climate lead to calls for action, research proj- C. L. Farr ects, and eventually the development of new management U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Portland, OR, USA and restoration techniques (Adhikari and Hartemink 2016; McBratney et al. 2014). This chapter begins with a D. S. Page-Dumroese Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, summary of historical forest and rangeland management Moscow, ID, USA with respect to soils and is followed by an overview of the S. J. Connolly shifts in policy and planning and advances in management U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research and restoration. We highlight a few case studies, discuss Station, Newtown Square, PA, USA monitoring, and end with key findings and information E. Padley needs. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC, USA © The Author(s) 2020 145 R. V. Pouyat et al. (eds.), Forest and Rangeland Soils of the United States Under Changing Conditions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45216-2_8 146 M. I. Williams et al. 2004). After 1850, lumber production increased quickly as Context cities were constructed and farmsteads were built in the Great Plains; railroad expansion also used a large proportion Humans are now an order of magnitude more important at mov- of harvested wood (MacCleery 1993). ing sediment than the sum of all other natural processes operat- Timber extraction prior to the Civil War typically focused ing on the surface of the planet.—Wilkinson (2005) on removing high-value trees close to waterways, as logs were heavy and difficult to move (Fedkiw 1989). Logging was mainly accomplished by hand-felling trees and skidding Historical Forest Soil Management the logs with oxen or horse teams. It was a cumbersome process that left most of the forest unaffected, although damage The early history of forests in North America does not to streambanks and streams was serious, and effects still include a record of soil impacts, but we can infer some exist today (Sedell et al. 1991). When railroads came into aspects of this from land use and population factors. As widespread use in the latter half of the 1800s, destructive Europeans began arriving in North America during the mid- logging practices affected larger areas. The most widespread seventeenth century, total forest area was estimated at 4.14 soil damage of that period was caused by fires ignited by million km2 (1023 million acres) (Oswalt et al. 2014). Native sparks from locomotives. Wildfires ripped through logging peoples were soon decimated by disease, and much of their slash, destroying the organic horizons of soils and leading to agricultural land reverted to forest naturally (Lewis and postfire erosion, sedimentation, and nutrient loss (Fedkiw Maslin 2015; Mann et al. 1988). The extent of forest cover in 1989; MacCleery 2004). In the western United States, gen- what is now the United States, as reconstructed from saw eral policies to pile and burn logging slash were adopted to timber inventories, was likely greater from 1650 to 1700 than prevent such wildfires (Lyman 1947). However, slash pile in any other period (Birdsey et al. 2006). Williams (1989) burning comes with its own set of short- and long-term con- suggested that forests may have covered “at least four-fifths sequences to soil properties that long-term research would of the land area east of the Mississippi River.” Population later identify (reviewed in Rhodes and Fornwalt 2015). In increased slowly during the 1700s but jumped from 5.3 mil- some regions, farming was attempted on unsuitable logged- lion to 76 million people in the 1800s (Fedkiw 1989; over soils that eventually reverted to forest. MacCleery 2004). To support the increase in population Soil fertility, as a component of forest site quality, was growth, settlers cleared approximately 0.77 million forested gradually recognized during the 1920s and 1930s, and km2 for farms and pastures between 1850 and 1910, more research efforts during the following decades focused on area than had been cleared in the previous 250 years matching forest species to site. The use of site index as a (Williams 1989). Following the period of intensive land rough measure of productive capacity and the construction clearing, the remaining 3.05 million km2 of forest (Oswalt of yield tables led to the acceptance of the two soil facts: et al. 2014) was largely saved by technological advances; Soils differ widely in their ability to support tree growth and land used to feed draft animals became available for other vegetative growth overall; and forest management as well as crops as animal labor was replaced by motorized equipment, other types of resource management, such as wildlife man- and agricultural production per area boomed as a result of agement, could be informed and made more productive by a plant breeding, irrigation, and fertilizer. In 2012, forested knowledge of soil (Leopold 1933; Wilde 1958). area has increased only slightly to 3.1 million km2 (766 mil- Forestry operations moved toward mechanization after lion acres) since 1910 (Oswalt et al. 2014). World War II (WWII) and progressed in stages as technology Until recently, forest soil management has been charac- changed. Simmons wrote in 1949 that the “tractor, the power terized primarily by inattention or risk avoidance. Inattention saw, and the motortruck are becoming commonplace prevailed throughout the 1800s in the absence of regulations, throughout the country, even on small logging jobs.” Truck conservation practices, or foresters (Fedkiw 1989; MacCleery hauling replaced railroads for moving logs to mills, and 1993); this period of rapid land clearance was also a time of ground skidders replaced horse teams for dragging logs to high demand for wood. Land clearing and extraction from pickup points. Road and skid trail layout became important, remaining forests resulted in an alarming 75% drawdown of utilizing engineering techniques to stabilize roadbeds and sawtimber stocks between 1800 and 1920 (Birdsey et al. manage hydrology. This was primarily to maintain longevity 2006), leading to the first forest conservation policies in the of the roads but also served to limit soil movement and loss. 1930s (MacCleery 1993). Wood was enormously important With the advent of heavier tractors and specialized logging during the nineteenth century as a fuel source for heat and equipment, soil compaction became a widespread problem. steam power; it was the only material for building fences up In the 1960s, researchers

Load more