Consequences of Tree Cover on Soil and Ground Water Development in Faizabad District

The main aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of tree cover on soil fertility and ground water in Faizabad District. Tree cover helps to maintain water table and soil fertility of an area. Tree cover maintain water table into two ways, first litter and shade of tree reduce evaporation and second reduce surface runoff and increase infiltration rate. Soil fertility is the capacity of soil to support the growth of plants, on a sustained basis, under given conditions of climate and other relevant properties of land. Tree cover is controlled by the soil besides that tree cover makes soil fertile. Tree cover maintains organic matter through carbon fixation in photosynthesis and its transfer through the litter and root. Trees tend to moderate the effect of leaching through addition of base to the soil surface. Afforestation reduces the effect of salinity and alkalinity. Trees maintain soil fertility through nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs are capable of fixing about 50–100 kg N/ha/yr. In the study area forest cover is negligible; mainly the plantation is the basis of tree cover. Maximum plantations were done in the district under the social forestry schemes. The total forested area of the district is only 0.95% while the total tree cover is

2.9% of the total geographical area. The present study is based on the secondary data collected from Soil office, Faizabad, Ground water data is collected from Central ground water board, Lucknow and plantation and tree cover data is collected from Forest office, Faizabad. To find out the impact of tree cover on the soil fertility and water table Spearman's ranking correlation method is used. The result is shown with the help of cartographic method. There is a positive correlation between the soil fertility and tree cover of 0.68 which is significant at the level of 0.05%. In the district water level fluctuates according to the tree cover there is a general tendency where tree cover is high water level is also high.