Abstract: Soil Water Repellency (SWR) can be defined as the phenomenon that a soil does not wet spontaneously when water is applied on the surface, which has an important impact on agricultural water management, soil water infiltration, agro-pollutants transport and soil erosion. However, little is known on the SWR in oasis cropland. This purpose of the study was to analysis characteristics of soil water repellency and its causes in Linze oasis cropland. Soil samples at the depth of 0-5 cm were selected in the natural sand (0 year) and reclaimed 10 years, 30 years, 50 years and 100 years oasis cropland. Soil organic carbon, soil texture (sand, silt & clay) and soil pH was measured, and soil water repellency was determinated by the capillary rise method. The results showed that soil water repellency increased with the increase of reclamation years. The "soil-water" contact angle ranged from 58° to 89° and was significant difference among different reclaimed years cropland (P<0.001). Soil organic carbon, soil texture and soil pH all had significant regression relation with soil-water contact angle (P<0.001). The results of stepwise regression analysis showed that soil organic carbon and pH explained 72.1% variation of soil water repellency, and effected more soil water repellency than soil texture. All results of the study indicated that further research on soil water repellency should pay more attention to soil organic carbon and pH.

Key words: soil water repellency, oasis cropland, contact angle, regression analysis