Research On The Formation Process Of Lawn Trampling Path Based On Simulated Trampling Experiment

Footpaths have important effects on lawn.Quantifying the basic characteristics and formation process of lawn footpaths may be helpful for lawn management policies and lawn spatial planning.In this paper,the lawn footpaths on the campus of Guizhou University were taken as the research object,and then the basic characteristics,formation process and the trampling intensity required for the formation of the footpaths were explored by field investigation and simulation trampling experiment.The main conclusions are as follows:1.The campus lawn footpaths can be divided into three types: shortcuts,extension footpaths and local footpaths.Shortcuts and extension footpaths distributed mainly near the dormitories,dining halls,teaching buildings,auditorium and other places with large flow of people.Local footpaths appeared only near stools or statues on lawns.The length of shortcuts,extension footpaths and local footpaths were 9.4 m,11.3 m and 3.0m in average,and that of width were 0.9 m,0.7 m and 0.5 m respectively.The campus lawn footpaths were mainly composed of shortcuts.They occupied about 61% in number and 62% in area of all footpaths.The could save 18.0 m or 57.8% walking distance in average.The extension footpaths occupied about 31% in number and 36%in area of all footpaths.The local footpaths occupied about 8% in number and 2% in area of all footpaths.2.There were obvious differences between footpaths and lawn soil.Compared with the lawn,the footpaths had lower soil bulk density,soil water content and organic carbon content.There were no significant differences between footpath soil and lawn in p H,soil soluble salt content and soil below-ground biomass.With the increase of soil depth,the differences between the footpath soil and the lawn decreased gradually.3.The formation of footpath could be divided into two stages including vegetation elimination and soil hardening.At the vegetation elimination stage,after 100 trampling times,the vegetation height will be reduced to about 65%.After 5000 trampling times,all vegetation were cleared out.At the soil hardening stage,with the increase of trampling intensity,soil hardness increased gradually.4.Soil water content affects the formation of footpaths.We used surface soil hardness as an indicator of footpaths formation.When the water content was less than20%,more than 45000 trampling times were needed.When the water content was 20%–25%,the trampling times required were 10000–45000 times.When the water content was 25%–28%,the trampling times required were thousands or even hundreds.When the water content was greater than 28%,the hardness of lawn soil was close to that of footpaths,therefore the trampling times needed cannot be calculated.