Soil Moisture and Its Distribution Characteristics at Shaliuhe Town in North Qinghai Lake

The Qinghai Lake area is sensitive to climatic changes and has fragile ecological environment.This paper aims at researching on soil moisture distribution and soil granularity,evaluating the storage and regulating capacity of soil reservoir,analyzing the types of water cycle and vegetations suitable for developing and providing theoretical basis for husbandry production,vegetation construction and policy formulation around the Qinghai Lake.With soil samples collected at Shaliuhe Town in the north of Qinghai Lake,we have analyzed the characteristics of soil moisture distribution and soil granularity based on the measurement of soil moisture content and soil granularity.The results show that with the increasing depth of water in the north of Qinghai Lake,the soil moisture decreases and the degree of the dried soil layer aggravates;the soil moisture distribution in this area is extremely special because the soil moisture is high in the upper soil layer while low and seriously inadequate in the lower;the soil particle size is mainly coarse silt slightly bigger than that at Loess Plateau;soil moisture below 0.6m is less than 11%,which shows that the desiccation of soil layer is significant and the precipitation doesn't participate in groundwater circulation resulting in forming the soil-atmosphere moisture cyclic model.In addition,due to small soil thickness,low capacity of soil reservoir,little storage capacity and poor hydrological adjusting functions,the ecological environment is fragile in this area and grassland degradation easily occurs in drought years.Moreover,because of the long freezing period of soil layer and the phenomenon that low temperature results in the poor evapotranspiration,soil moisture is mainly distributed in the upper soil layer.In summary,this region is favorable to develop shallow-rooted grassland vegetations and little water-consumption grassland vegetations but not suitable for developing the plants of high water consuming intensity or arbor and bush vegetations.