Study on the Effect of Topsoil Storage Mode on Topsoil Availability

Topsoil resources are important resources for ecological restoration in mining areas, although the topsoil stripped in practical projects can not be used for ecological restoration immediately. The changes that occur in topsoil after a certain period of storage in arid areas are not clear, so we have no insight on how to make the best use topsoil for ecological restoration after storage in the mining areas. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of topsoil accumulation on seed density and topsoil nutrient content in seed banks, which could provide a technical basis for vegetation reconstruction of coal mine damaged land in desert areas and theoretical support for ecological restoration practices. In this study, two storage methods of round table piles (hereafter referred to as YT) and cube ton bags (hereafter referred to as DD) were used to preserve uniformly mixed topsoil samples, and the loss of the soil seed bank and nutrient depletion under different topsoil storage methods were analyzed. In the two storage modes, the soil seed density loss on the surface of the pile was the largest, and the loss rate was 79.30%–83.65%. At a given sampling location, soil seed density increased significantly with soil depth (P<0.05). Compared with the change in seed density, soil nutrient loss was less pronounced, and the loss rate was between 8.92% and 16.62%. The seed density loss of the topsoil was the highest in both stacking modes. With the increase in the soil layer, soil seed density was significantly increased (P<0.05). At the same time, there was no significant difference in seed loss between the two storage modes. In the process of preservation, shrub seeds were the most seriously lost in the pile. The nutrient preservation effect of the ton bag storage mode (DD) was better than that of the round table storage mode (YT), and the soil nutrient loss of the top layer of the pile was the greatest, while the soil nutrient losses of other soil layers were lower.