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Abstrakt

The aim of this manuscript is to introduce a modified Spectroscopic method for the determination of water-extractable forms of organic carbon (WEOC) from forest soils and to compare this simple spectroscopy method with the most common but economically demanding method of elemental analysis. Afterwards, the spectroscopy method was applied to a large series of aqueous extracts from real soil samples. These samples originate from two different soil environments – from under beech and under spruce forests. Extraction of WEOC was made by deionised water. The extracts were divided into two parts; the contents of WEOC were determined by means of elemental analysis and also by means of the modified spectroscopy method. The comparison of determined amounts of WEOC revealed a close and statistically significant relationship between the results of these independent methods (F-test = 849.9 for p < 0.001; R2 = 97.8 %). The Spectroscopic method proved to be fast, easy and an economical alternative to the commonly used method of elemental analysis. Generally, the amounts of WEOC determined under spruce forest were significantly higher than those determined under beach forest. There has been observed decreasing trend of WEOC amounts with increasing depth of soil profiles for both studied environments.