Urban Soil Properties as Affected by Land Use Units and Socio-economic Levels—the Case of the City of Tel-Aviv, Israel
Abstract
Over 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas and affect soil properties. The aim of this study was to analyze soil properties in various urban open land use units (LUU) in two neighborhoods that differ in their socio-economic levels (High and Low). Four types of LUU (municipal parks, private gardens, derelict areas and traffic islands) with four replicas for each LUU were chosen in each neighborhood. Organic matter content, soil moisture and pH at two depths of soil (0-2 cm and 5-10 cm) and soil surface compaction by penetration depth were analyzed. Results indicate that “urbanization footprint” was significantly represented by the upper soil layer. Urbanization led to increase of organic matter and water content in the sandy soil relatively to undisturbed sandy soil that was observed at an adjacent national park. The anthropogenic impact on soil within the urban system is correlated with the socio-economic level of the neighborhood. A low socio-economic level led to a decrease in the variability of soil properties, and thus restricted the urban ecosystems’ heterogeneity.References
Aey, W. (1990) Historical approaches to urban ecology. Method and first result from a case study (Lubeck, West-Germany). In: Sukkop, H., Kowarik, I., Hejny, S. (eds.) Urban Ecology. Den Haag: SPB Academic Publishing, 113–129.
Alberti, M., Marzluff, J.M. (2004) Ecological resilience in urban ecosystems: Linking urban patterns to human and ecological functions. Urban Ecosystems, 7: 241–265.
Alexandrovskaya, E.I., Alexandrovskiy, A.L. (2000) History of the cultural layer in Moscow and accumulation of anthropogenic substances in it. Catena, 41: 249–259.
Andres-Abellan, M., Del Alamo, J.B., Landete-Castillejos, T., Lopez-Serrano F.R., Garcia-Morote, F.A. and Del Cerro-Barja, A. (2005) Impact of visitors on soil and vegetation of the recreational area "Nachimiento Del Rio Mundo" (Castilla-La Mancha, Spain). Environmental Monitoring Assessment, 101: 55–67.
Bengtsson, J., Angelstam, P., Elmqvist, T., Emanuelsson, U., Folke, C., Ihse, M., Moberg, F. and Nyström, M. (2003) Reserves, Resilience and Dynamic Landscapes. Ambio, 32 (6): 389–396.
Beyer, L., Blume, H.P., Elsner, D.H., Willnow, A. (1995) Soil organic matter composition and microbial activity in urban soils. Science of the Total Environment, 169: 267–278.
Beyer, L., Kahle, P., Kretschmer, H. and Wu, Q. (2001) Soil organic matter composition and man-impacted urban sites in North Germany. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Scicience, 164: 359–364.
Blume, H.P. (1989) Characteristics of urban soils. MAB workshop "International scientific workshop on soils and soil zoology in urban ecosystems as a basis for management and use of green/open spaces" in Berlin, September 15–19, 1986. In Publications of German National Committee of UNESCO program "Man and Biosphere", Vol. 30. Berlin, pp. 23–46.
Chiesura, A. (2004) The role of urban parks for sustainable city. Landscape and Urban Planning, 68: 129–138.
Craswell, E.T. and Lefroy, R.D.B. (2001) The role and function of organic matter in tropical soils. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 61: 7–18.
Demographia website (2000) World urban population density by country & area. Retrieved 2006Feb 15 from the website: http://www.demographia.com/db-intlua-area2000.htm
Doichinova, V., Zhiyanski, M. and Hursthouse, A. (2006) Impact of urbanization on soil characteristics. Environmental Chemistry Letters, 3: 160–163.
Dotzenko, A.D., Papamichos, N.T. and Romine, D.S. (1967) Effect of recreational use on soil moisture conditions in Rocky Mountain National Park. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 22: 196–197.
Effland, W.R., Pouyat, R.V. (1997) The genesis, classification and mapping of soils in urban areas. Urban Ecosystems, 1: 217–228.
Ellis, C.D., Lee, S.W. and Kweon, B.S. (2006) Retail land use, neighborhood satisfaction and the urban forest: An investigation into the moderating and mediating effect of trees and shrubs. Landscape and Urban Planning, 74: 70–78.
Erkip (Beler), F. (1997) The distribution of urban public services: The case of parks and recreational services in Ankara. Cities, 14 (6): 353–361.
Fischer, J., Lindenmayer, D.B. and Manning, A.D. (2006) Biodiversity, ecosystem function, and resilience: Ten guiding principles for commodity production landscapes. Frontiers of Ecological Environment, 4 (2): 80–86.
Jenny, H. (1941) Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology. New York/London: McGraw-Hill,
Jim, C.Y. (1987) Trampling impacts of recreationists on picnic sites in a Hong Kong country park. Environmental Conservation, 14 (2): 117–127.
Jim, C.Y. (1993) Soil compaction as a constraint to tree growth in tropical and subtropical urban habitats. Environmental Conservation, 20 (1): 35–49.
Jim, C.Y. (1998a) Soil characteristics and management in urban park in Hong Kong. Environmental Management, 22 (5): 683–695.
Jim, C.Y. (1998b) Urban soil characteristics and limitations for landscape planting in Hong Kong. Landscape and Urban Planning, 40: 235–249.
Jim, C.Y. (2003) Soil recovery from human disturbance in tropical woodlands in Hong Kong. Catena, 52: 85–103.
Jim, C.Y. and Chen, W.Y. (2006) Recreation-amenity use and contingent valuation of urban greenspaces in Guangczhou, China. Landscape and Urban Planning, 75: 81–96.
Karpachevsky, L.O., Voronin, A.D., Demitriev, A.D., Stroganova, M.N. and Shoba, S.A. (1980) Soil and biogeocenological research in forest ecosystems. Moscow State University, Moscow. (Russian).
Koyumdjisky, H., Dan. J., Soriano, S. and Nisim, S. (1988) Selected soils profiles in Israel. The Volcani Centre, Bet Dagan, Israel. (Hebrew)
Kuss, F.R. (1986) A review of major factors influencing plant responses to recreation impacts. Environmental Management, 10 (5): 637–650.
Kutiel, P. and Zhevelev, H. (2001) Recreational use impact on soil and vegetation at picnic sites in Aleppo pine forest on Mt. Carmel. Israel Journal of Plant Sciences, 49: 49–56.
Kutiel, P., Zhevelev, H. and Lavee, H. (2000) Coastal dune ecosystems: Management for conservation objective: III. Soil response to three vegetation types to recreational use. Journal of Mediterranean Ecology, 1: 171–179.
Lavee, H., Imeson, A.C. and Sarah, P. (1996) Aggregate stability dynamics as affected by soil temperature and moisture regimes. Geografiska Annaler, 78A: 73–82.
Lavee, H., Imeson, A.C. and Sarah, P. (1998) The impact of climate change on geomorphology and desertification along a Mediterranean-arid transect. Land Degradation and Development, 9: 407–422.
Lorenz, K. and Kandeler, E. (2005) Biochemical characterization of urban soil profiles from Stuttgart, Germany. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 37: 1373–1385.
Lorenz, K., Preston, C.M. and Kandeler, E. (2006) Soil organic matter in urban soils: Estimation of elemental carbon by thermal oxidation and characterization of organic matter by solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Geoderma, 130: 312–323.
Marion, J.L. and Cole, D.N. (1996) Spatial and temporal variation in soil and vegetation impacts on campsites. Ecological Applications, 6 (2): 520–530.
Martin, C.A., Warren, P.S., Kinzig, A.P. (2004) Neighborhood socioeconomic status as a useful predictor of perennial landscape vegetation in residential neighborhoods and embedded small parks of Phoenix, AZ. Landscape and Urban Planning, 69: 355–368.
McDonell, M.J. and Pickett, S.T.A. (1990) Ecosystem structure and function along urban-rural gradients: An unexploited opportunity for ecology. Ecology, 71 (4): 1232–1237.
Meshalkina, J.L., Stein, A. and Dmitriev, Y.A. (1995) Spatial variability of penetration data on Russian plots in different land use. Soil Technology, 8: 43–59.
Meshcheryakov, P.V., Prokopovich, E.V. and Korkina, I.N., 2005. Transformation of ecological conditions of soil and humus substance formation in the urban environment. Russian Journal of Ecology, 36 (1): 8–15.
Pauleit, S., Ennos, R. and Golding, Y. (2005) Modeling the environmental impacts of urban land use and land cover change – a study in Merseyside, UK. Landscape and Urban Planning, 71: 295–310.
Pickett, S.T.A., Cadenasso, M.L. and Grove, J.M. (2004) Resilient cities: Meaning, models, and metaphor for integrating the ecological, socio-economic, and planning realms. Landscape and Urban Planning, 69: 369–384.
Pouyat, R., Groffman, P., Yesilonis, I. and Hernandez., L. (2002) Soil carbon pools and fluxes in urban ecosystems. Environmental Polluttion, 116: S107–S118.
Rowell, D.L. (1994) Soil Science: Methods and Application. New York: Longman Scientific and Technical.
Sarah, P. (2001) Soluble salts dynamics in the soil under different climatic conditions. Catena, 43: 307–321.
Sarah, P., Zhevelev, H.M. (2007) Effect of visitors’ pressure on soil and vegetation in several different micro-environments in urban parks in Tel Aviv. Landscape and Urban Planning, 83: 284–293.
Scharenbroch, B.C., Lloyd, J.E. and Johnson-Maynard, J.L. (2005) Distinguishing urban soils with physical, chemical and biological properties. Pedobiologia, 49 (4): 283–296.
Schleus, U., Qinglan, W. and Blume, H.P. (1998) Variability of soils in urban and periurban areas in Northern Germany. Catena, 33: 255–270.
Singer, M.J., Warkentine, B.P. (1996) Soils in an environmental context: An American perspective. Catena, 27: 179–189.
Smith, R.M., Tompson, K., Hodgson, J.G., Warren, P.H. and Gaston, K.J. (2006) Urban domestic gardens (IX): Composition and richness of the vascular plant flora, and implications for native biodiversity. Biological Conservation, 129: 312–322.
Sukopp, H. (2004) Human-caused impact on preserved vegetation. Landscape and Urban Planning, 68: 347–355.
Sukopp, H., Blume, H.P. and Kunick, W. (1979) The soil, flora and vegetation of Berlin's Waste Lands. In: Laurie, I.C. (ed.), Nature in Cities. New York: Chichester, 115–131.
Sukopp, H. and Werner, P. (1983) Urban environment and vegetation. In: Holzner, W., Werger, M.J.A. and Ikusima, I. (eds.), Man's Impact on Vegetation. The Hague: Dr. W. Junk Publishers, 247–260.
Tel-Aviv Yafo Municipality, Centre for Social and Economic Research (2002) Statistical Yearbook (Vol. 42). Tel Aviv (Hebrew)
Tisdall, J.M. and Oades, J.M. (1982) Organic matter and water-stable aggregates in soils. Journal of Soil Science, 33: 141–163.
Thompson, C.W. (2002) Urban open space in the 21st century. Landscape and Urban Planning, 60: 59–72.
Yaalon, D.H. (1997) Soils in the Mediterranean region: What makes them different? Catena, 28: 157–169.
Zhao, Y-G., Zhang, G-L., Zepp, H. and Yang, J-L. (2007) Establishing a spatial grouping base for surface soil properties along urban-rural gradient – A case study in Nanjing, China. Catena, 69 (1): 74–81.
Zheveleva, E.M., Ignatjeva, M.E. and Kavtaradze, D.N. (1989) Soil and the problem of urban plant community formation in the "Ecopolis" (Tow Poushchino, Moscow Region). In German National Committee of UNESCO Program, Man and Biosphere, Vol. 30. Berlin, 47–57.
Zhevelev, E.M., Sarah, P. (2002) Characterization of soil organic matter content of two sample size populations along a climatic transect. Environmental Monitoring & Assessment, 80: 107–123.
Zwikel, S., Lavee, H. and Sarah, P. (2007) Temporal dynamics in arysulfatase enzyme activity in various microenvironments along a climatic transect in Israel. Geoderma, 140: 30–41.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
