Ecological Modelling 221 (2010) 953–959 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Modelling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolmodel Modelling dynamics of soil organic matter under different historical land-use management techniques in European Russia Maxim Bobrovsky a , Alexander Komarov a , Alexey Mikhailov a,∗ , Larisa Khanina b a Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science RAS, 2, Institutskaya ul., Pushchino 142290, Russia b Institute of Mathematical Problems in Biology RAS, Russia article info Article history: Received 21 April 2008 Received in revised form 16 December 2009 Accepted 17 December 2009 Available online 18 January 2010 Keywords: Soil organic matter (SOM) Slash-and-burn system Field-forest shifting system Three-field crop rotation EFIMOD ROMUL abstract We have analyzed an influence of the traditional agricultural system techniques on the soil organic matter dynamics using the model of carbon and nitrogen cycling in forest ecosystems EFIMOD linked with the model of SOM dynamics ROMUL. Forest stands on the loamy soddy-podzolic soils (Alfisoils) located in the Central European Russia have been taken for the case study. The following land-use management scenarios were simulated: (a) slash-and-burn system with 3 years for crops and 120, 60 and 25 years for forest; (b) three-field crop rotation system with organic fertilization (dung) every 3 and 9 years and the same rotation without fertilization; and (c) short-term field-forest shifting system with 10 years for crops and 10 and 25 years for forest. Analysis of the results showed that the frequency of agricultural use in mixed field-forest land-use systems was crucial for soil organic matter dynamics. Under the short interval between agriculture, the stocks of all soil organic matter pools decreased. Under all scenarios except the three-field crop rotation with fertilization and the slash-and-burn system with 120 years for forest, a strong reduction of soil organic matter occurred after 30–130 years of the agricultural impacts. The highest reduction rates were modelled under the short-term field-forest shifting system and three- field rotation without fertilization. Fertilization led to stabilization of soil organic matter pools and gave a possibility for a long time stable agricultural use. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Modelling of different techniques of historical land-use man- agement can be applied in decision of a range of tasks. It allows for the assessing levels of soil organic matter (SOM) under traditional land-use systems, for the assessing admissible ‘lifetime’ of differ- ent agricultural systems in different environmental conditions, for obtaining the new data to understand ecosystems’ history, and for the test of historical reconstructions concepts. Moreover usually the models of global carbon cycle assume that significant anthro- pogenic impact started in the middle of XIX century (Houghton, 2003; Denman et al., 2007). However, historical reviews show that various intensive anthropogenic impacts were widespread throughout Europe long before this time. Consecutive replace- ments of agricultural systems and lands rotation (forests, arable lands, grasslands, etc.) took place during all the early medieval time. Periods of land’s intensive use and land abandoning (when forest vegetation had been regenerated naturally) took turns. This led to forest habitats changing and to essential modifications of biogeo- ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +7 496 7730755; fax: +7 496 7330595. E-mail addresses: maxim.bobrovsky@gmail.com (M. Bobrovsky), alexey.mikh@gmail.com (A. Mikhailov). chemical cycles, first of all to modifications of carbon cycle (AGH, 1999; Song and Woodcock, 2003; Lal, 2005). In European Rus- sia, the essential part of impacts was concerned about traditional agriculture systems as follows: slash-and-burn system, short-term field-forest shifting system, and three-field system. These land- use systems defined frequency and structure of human impacts to lands, lands rotation, etc. The slash-and-burn system is considered to be the first agricul- tural system in forested regions of Europe. It had been widespread since 7000 years B.P. in South-Eastern Europe (Willis et al., 1995), since 6000 years B.P. in Northern Europe (Eriksson et al., 2002), and since 5000 years B.P. in Central European Russia (Krasnov, 1987). It is a quite productive agricultural system which is effective enough in forested regions. The ratio of planted to harvested grain in the first few years of the slash-and-burn was within the range from 1:10–1:100 (Milov, 1998). That is why the slash-and-burn was used in some regions of the Northern and the Eastern Europe till the middle of 20th century (Bobrovsky, 2004). For example, in Finland about 25% of rye crops were grown by the slash-and-burn in 1830 (Linkola, 1988). As population density increased and forest area decreased throughout Europe, the slash-and-burn agricultural system had been gradually substituted by the tillage agriculture with spe- cial draught animal implements. Tillage agriculture appeared 0304-3800/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.12.013