Changes of Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Storages under Modern Industrialization in a Rural Landscape of North China Plain

Modern industrialization pushes agricultural modernization, which is changing nutrients biogeochemical cycles in soil as well as regional and global environmental changes. Taking a typical agricultural county of North China Plain as an example, the article, choosing initial stage (year 1983), middle stage (year 1990) and modern stage (year 2004) of agricultural modernization across agricultural reform process, studied soil pH, bulk, contents and storages of organic carbon and total nitrogen, by taking soil samples and experimental determination. During recent 20 years from traditional agriculture to modern in the region, soil pH decreased, bulk increased lightly, the contents of organic carbon and total nitrogen significantly increased by 70% and 133% respectively, and the storages of organic carbon and total nitrogen in whole county increased by 72% and 113% respectively, with rapider increase rates after 1990. Modern industrial technologies applied to agriculture, including large quantity of chemical fertilizers inputs, modern machine irrigation and agricultural mechanizations, were the main causes reduced these changes.