Plant and Soil Change During Forest Restoration in a Small Catchment of Upper Minjiang River Valley

As an ecological sensitive region, the restoration of arid valley in Upper Minjiang River were paid much attention. Many efforts were made to restore the degraded ecosystems such as artificial forest plantation, turn farmland to grassland or forestland etc. Taking a small semi-arid catchment with good ecological restoration history as an example, we studied the soil quality and plant biodiversity change due to forest plantation. The results showed that shrub diversity increased but herb diversity decreased during reforestation. As time series of plantation, we found that soil fertility condition would increase with the time of plantation. The OM, TN, AK and SW had good relationship with reforested years. The study suggested that in the arid valleys forests had a good capacity for soil improvement and forest plantation, if well restored, could also improve soil quality and biodiversity.