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Arid Land Geography ›› 2021, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (4): 1125-1134.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000–6060.2021.04.24

• Soil Resources • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of wind farms on soil moisture in grassland

JIA Xin(),LI Guoqing(),WANG Gang,CAO Yu   

  1. Resources and Environmental Engineering College, Ludong University, Yantai 264025, Shandong, China
  • Received:2020-05-08 Revised:2020-12-03 Online:2021-07-25 Published:2021-08-02
  • Contact: Guoqing LI E-mail:jiaxin.yx@foxmail.com;ligqing@foxmail.com

Abstract:

In recent years, wind farms have gained increasing attention in China. The global shortage of nonrenewable energy has led to an unprecedented and rapid expansion in the amount of land coverage allocated to wind farms, and by the end of 2019, China’s cumulative installed wind power capacity had reached 15.85×106 kW. Although wind farms play an active role in improving the country’s energy structure, promoting environmental protection, and maintaining sustainable economic and social development, the environmental changes caused by wind farms have also caught the attention of researchers. Soil moisture, as one of the most important physical and chemical properties of soil, is one of the main parameters used in the fields of climate, hydrology, ecology, and agriculture. It plays an essential role in the exchange of water and energy between the surface and the atmosphere. Slight changes in soil moisture levels may reflect more significant changes in the climate or environment; thus, it is important to study any change of soil moisture levels after the construction of wind farms if the influence of a wind farm on its local climate and environment is to be evaluated. In this paper, the Huitengliang wind farm in Inner Mongolia, China is used as the study area. Forty-two Landsat remote sensing images (taken before and after the wind farm was built) and soil moisture data were used to construct a model that establishes the linear relationship between the modified perpendicular drought index of the remote sensing images and the measured levels of the soil moisture. The one-way ANOVA method was then used to judge the influence of the extents and variances of the wind farm on the soil moisture in grassland areas. Our results show that (1) the construction of a wind farm could lead to a change in the soil moisture, but there were significant differences in the range of these soil moisture changes in the upwind and downwind directions surrounding wind farms. (2) The most obvious influence on soil moisture was in the downwind direction from the wind farm. The number of pixels affected in the downwind direction accounted for 55% of the total number of pixels of the downwind direction. The least influence on soil moisture was seen in the upwind direction, and the number of pixels affected in this direction was 31% of the total pixels. (3) The wind farm had the most significant influence on soil moisture in April and August, which could reduce the soil moisture of the grassland area, thus aggravating the drought of the grass, in its reviving and maturing stages. The construction of wind farms is a human intervention on nature, and their construction should consider the protection of the ecological environment as the most basic criterion. Using remote sensing technology combined with the measured soil moisture data, through model simulation and a significance test, this paper discusses the influence of the extents and variances of the wind farm on the soil moisture in the grassland area to produce recommendations for the construction of wind farms to ensure that there are minimal effects on the soil moisture levels and the sustainable development of the grassland ecosystem.

Key words: windfarm, soil moisture, grasslands, Huitengliang area in Inner Mongolia