Published Paper Details:

The impact of urbanization on land resources has a major concern over past few decades, and in particular, to those involved in soil studies. Variations in soil properties in different land use might be due to dynamic interactions among environmental factors such as climate, parent material, topography and land use and land cover. This study was initiated to investigate the impact of different land uses on the soil characteristics in the Ranipur Rao Shiwalik hill Watershed at Haridwar. However, for the study point of view, the total length of Ranipur Rao is divided into five zones having forest area, industrial area residential area, agro-residential area and agricultural area. Mean value of pH in agricultural land showed the highest pH (7.38-7.56) followed by the industrial and residential areas. Soil of forest area showed highest Organic Matter (4.85%) and minimum Organic Matter (0.87%) found in industrial area due to the impact of industrial activities. A correlation matrix of 12 soil parameters representing soil physico- chemical properties resulted at P<0.05 or P<0.01 level and interrelationship among the nutrients offers a better understanding of the soil system. Thus, it may be concluded that the different land uses have significant effects on soil characteristics which in turn lead to the change in the nutrient status of soil. These findings will be useful for helping to describe and classify the soils and predict their potential for sustainable land uses and effective technologies to avoid the soil quality from further deterioration.