Physicochemical Characteristics and Microbial Activity in the Various Urban Soils

Although urban soils must be well understood in order to ensure their conservation and optimum use, these intensively managed and disturbed soils have not been extensively investigated up to now. Urban soils from forest, lawn, streetside, and bare ground and under pavement in Inchon had high bulk density as a result of widespread trampling-induced soil compaction. The various urban soils including forests showed lower water content and higher temperature as compared with rural forest soil. Chemically, soils from urban areas had an unusual neutral pH and low organic matter content. Total bacterial numbers in urban soils was only 5∼50% of that in the rural forest soil. An analysis of stepwise multiple regression revealed that soil organic matter was the most important predictor variable on total bacterial number. The dehydrogenase activity of most urban soils was not significantly different from that of rural forest soil, whereas the microbial activity of soils under pavement was lower. Our investigations show that inadequate organic matter of highly compacted soils has adversely affected the abundance of microorganisms involving nutrient cycling in urban soils.