Zagroz Forest Converting to Rainfed lands Impacting Soil Quality in the Merek Catchment, Kermanshah, Iran

The quantity and quality of Zagros Forests (west Iran) are declining through improper management and land-use practices negatively affecting life in the regional scale. The objective of this research was explored the change in soil quality through conversion of forest to rain-fed practices which was conducted in the Gazaf-e-olya village in the Merek watershed, Kermanshah, Iran. Thirty five soil samples were collected from surface soil layers and subjected to soil physicochemical analysis. The data also were analyzed both classical and semivariance using SAS software. The results showed that there was no significant difference for soil particles distributions (sand, silt and clay) in the forest and rain-fed areas. The respective level of bulk density (BD) in the forest and rain-fed was 1.26 and 1.32 gr-1cm-3, indicating significant difference (p