Abstract: By observing the soil evaporation under litter cover in broadleaved Korean pine forest, this paper studied the effects of the litters with different dry weights and at different decomposition stages on the soil evaporation as well as the relations between the soil evaporation and soil moisture content. The results showed that at the same soil moisture contents, the larger the litter cover, the smaller the soil evaporation was. The mitigation effect of the litter cover on the soil respiration differed with the decomposition stage of the litters, being decreased in the order of undecomposed, semidecomposed, and decomposed litters. There existed a logarithm relationship between the soil evaporation and the litter mass. With the decrease of soil moisture content, the soil evaporation reduced. When the soil moisture content was within the range of 38%-41%, each 1% decline of the moisture content induced the soil evaporation under the covering of 75 g, 45 g, and 15 g litters decreased by 2.38 g, 1.43 g, and 1.30 g, respectively, and, during the declining of the moisture content, the higher the decomposition rate of the litters, the lesser the decrement of the soil respiration.

Key words: Landsat time series stack, vegetation change tracker model (VCT), urban forest, disturbance and recovery.