Experimental research on the soil moisture regulation of seabuckthorn plant flexible dams

Seabuckthorn plant fleixble dam plays an important role in controlling soil sediment. In order to explore the soil moisture regulation of seabuckthorn dams, field experiments were carried out for five seabuckthorn dams and a small valley without seabuckthorn plant flelxible dams in Xizhao watershed, Inner Mongolia. Along the seabuckthorn dams and the small valley, several sections were set, two to three sample points for each section were selected. Soil samples were vertically selected from nine layers within 1 m depth to measure soil moisture content respectively. Results show that after a rainfall event, in the seabuckthorn dam body, the vertical distribution of soil moisture content exhibits decreasing type(soil moisture content decreases with the increase of soil depth). While in the small valley without flelxible dams, increasing or fluctuating types are observed. The seabuckthorn dam plays a positive role in the enhancement of rainfall infiltration, the maintenance of soil moisture, water and soil conservation and vegetation growth. From the midst of flelxible dam to the upstream silt layer, there exists a trend of longitudinal increase of average soil moisture content. Relationships between average soil moisture content and vertical distance were discussed based on the Darcy's law.