AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP025490374
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Critical deep soil moisture threshold determines Haloxylon ammodendron plantation sustainability across desert sites in northwest China

Xianzhong Wu1* ,  Shihan Hu2 ,  Jihui Zhang1 ,  Na Li1 ,  Siqi Wang1 ,  Zhimin Wang1 ,  Yuan Ma1 ,  Lei Yu1 ,  Jin Yang3 ,  Lei Wang3
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1 School of Environment and Urban Construction, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
2 College of Resources and Environment, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China
3 Water Resources Utilization Center of Shiyang River Basin, Gansu Provincial Department of Water Resources, Wuwei, Gansu, China
AJWEP, 025490374 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP025490374
Received: 3 December 2025 | Revised: 31 January 2026 | Accepted: 26 February 2026 | Published online: 8 May 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Haloxylon ammodendron plantations are critical for combating desertification in northwestern China’s arid regions, yet their sustainability is threatened by deep soil desiccation. While previous studies have documented growth patterns in dryland plantations, critical moisture thresholds and optimal rotation ages across contrasting site types remain poorly quantified. We conducted a chronosequence study across six H. ammodendron plantation sites (ages 3–35 years), representing three habitat types—converted cropland, mobile sand dunes, and gravel desert—in Minqin Oasis, northwestern China. We measured growth parameters, soil moisture profiles (0–100 cm depth), and dieback rates. Growth peaked at approximately 25 years (height 386 cm, crown area 11.95 m2), followed by rapid deterioration in 35-year stands with 26% height decline and 68% crown area reduction. Deep soil moisture (60–100 cm) emerged as the dominant limiting factor, exhibiting strong correlations with all growth parameters (r = 0.68–0.82, p < 0.01). A critical threshold of 2.0% was identified: plantations below this threshold exhibited severe dieback (15–52%) versus 8% above. Converted croplands maintained substantially higher deep moisture (3.04%) than sand dunes (1.64%) and gravel deserts (1.53%), resulting in 45% greater growth rates. Our results provide quantitative criteria for rotation planning: 25–30 years for converted croplands versus 20–25 years for sand dunes, with gravel deserts requiring supplemental irrigation below threshold.

Keywords
Haloxylon ammodendron
Deep soil moisture
Critical threshold
Site type
Growth performance
Funding
This research was funded by the Gansu Provincial Key R&D Special Program on Ecological Civilization Construction (Grant No. 24YFFA064), the Gansu Provincial Water Conservancy Science and Technology Extension Project (Grant No. 24GSLK072), and the Science and Technology Reserve Project of Lanzhou Science and Technology Bureau (Grant No. 2025-3-091).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing
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