Notice of RetractionChanges in Soil Physical Properties of Forest Floors in the Wenchuan Earthquake-Induced Landslides

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

The presenting author of this paper has the option to appeal this decision by contacting TPII@ieee.org.

A strong earthquake seriously disturbs local soil-forest ecosystems. However, the information is little, especially for how changes in soil physical properties of forest floors in earthquake induced landslide areas. It is useful for us to know how difficult naturally ecological restoration is in the disaster areas. Thus, an experiment was conducted in the northern section of fault belt formed by the Wenchuan Earthquake of China. 15 plots with 20 m × 20 m in size were set up in Cupressus funebris and Cryptomeria fortunei plantations located in landslide and non moved areas near the fault belt. The landslide and non-moved plots were almost near from each other. Within each of the plots, five points at center and near four corners were determined for soil sampling. Each of soil samples was collected from 0-10 cm, >;10-20 cm and >;20-40 cm depths at each of the points in all the plots. The samples were taken in the June and October, 2009. Soil bulk density, total porosity, capillary porosity, non-capillary porosity, water content, saturated water content, capillary moisture capacity and field water capacity were measured in the lab. The study revealed that bulk density increased and total porosity, capillary porosity, water content, saturated water content, capillary moisture capacity and field water capacity decreased in the landslide soils compared to the non-moved soils. All the properties were not different in the three layers in both landslide and non-moved soils. Cupressus funebris soil had high- r bulk density only and lower the other properties than did Cryptomeria fortunei soil. All the properties had no seasonal changes in 2009. These results indicate soil structure more seriously damaged in the landslide areas, the soils became tightening and drying, but the changes differed with various forests. Cupressus funebris soil had a weaker ability of water retention and the soil-forest ecosystems of the species would be more variable in the future.