Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

PHYTOMELIORATIVE POSSIBILITY OF FIXING FOCIOFDRIFTS AND DUNES FORMED AS A RESULT TO ANTHROPOGENIC DEGRADATION OF DESERTS AND SANDY SOILS

B. Rsymbetov, K. Kubenkulov and A. Naushabayev

Abstract

The work describes the phytomeliorative possibility of fixing the mobile dune formed as a result of anthropogenic degradation of the desert sandy soils of the Southern Balkhash region. Based on the study of the seasonal dynamics of the relief elements of the mobile dune locus and hydrothermal regimes, it has been clarified that during the spring-autumn period the noticeable changes take place in the dune forms: horizontal movement of the watershed by 150 cm with an increase in the dune height by 50 cm due to the removal of sand mass from the lower parts of a windward slope. Such metamorphosis in the dune relief increases the danger of burying the above-ground part of the seedlings of the sand-fixing forest shrubs into the watershed and exposing their root system on the windward slope. Moreover, the humidity of sand in the layer of the root system location in July-August falls below the wilting point of plants (<1.7%).