Revegetation condition and morphological characteristics of grass species observed in landslide scars, Shintategawa watershed, Fukuoka, Japan

A general trend of decreasing soil loss rates with increasing vegetation cover fraction is widely accepted and is a critical parameter of empirical and process based soil erosion prediction model. The spatial distributions of vegetation types indicate subsequent erosional state. In this study, we examined the ecological and morphological characteristics of colonized plant communities in six years old landslide scars. The morphological characteristics of plants like cover, root features, biomass, root: shoot ratio, pullout resistive force for individual grass species are investigated. The landslides scars have slope gradients of about 34-36° with soil depth range from 0.3 to 0.6 m. In some cases during six years periods 60-70% of landslide scars area was covered by herbaceous plants. The quadrat sampling method was done to examine quantitative vegetative attributes (relative density, relative frequency and relative cover). The Important Value Index (IVI) of an individual plant was identified to know the relative dominance. The plant types colonized was influenced by landscape orientation i.e., aspect. The pullout resistive force of different grass species was ranged between 6 to 49 Newton. The pullout resistive force has shown positive co-relationships with morphological parameters like shoot height, diameter and numbers of roots.