Effects of livestock grazing on soil moisture and rangeland vegetation cover in upland grasslands of Iran

摘要

Soil moisture holding capacity plays an important role on vegetation establishment and growth in rangelands.Rangeland plants are grazed by livestock and in the mean time soil surface gets compacted which adversely affect soil infiltration.In the most of cases the present range condition is the result of the previous management applied (Ferrero,1991).Thurow et al.(1986) indicated that the biomass of the available vegetation plays an important role in soil infiltration rate of rangeland.The short and long term grazing period impacts on infiltration rate of the soil in rangelands was investigated by Weitz and Wood (1986).