THE EFFECTS OF LAND USE CHANGE ON SOIL LOSS AND CARBON STOCK AMOUNTS

Owing to the land use change, vegetation cover, ecosystem functions and soil properties are affected and changing. Such a change on the land use forms is also the fact in this study area. The main purpose in this study was to determine the effects of land use change on the soil properties, soil loss and carbon stock. As a result, the land use change caused significant (P<0.001) alteration in soil loss (0.6 t/ha/yr in forest, 3.6 t/ha/yr in pasture). Soil carbon (150.4 t/ha in pasture, 174.3 t/ha in forest) and total carbon stock amounts (151.1 t/ha in pasture, 202.4 t/ha in forest) have also changed significantly (P<0.001). As well as soil organic matter, pH and EC in forest were found significantly different (P<0.01) in land use groups. According to the land use scenario which was established by utilizing the average values obtained in the research, it is expected that there will be about 2.1 t/ha/yr of soil loss amount per year in this area and about 15% of this is caused from the forest area and about 85% from the pasture. In other words, the effect of pasture lands on total soil loss is about 6 times higher than the forest lands.