Soil weathering rate and its applications: A review
土壤风化速率研究及其应用

Chemical weathering of soil minerals is a continuous and dynamic geochemical process, which can enhance the supply of base cations, determine the long-term availability of plant nutrients and the chemical status of the soils, can buffer against atmospheric acid deposition and alleviate soil and surface water acidification. Furthermore chemical weathering is closely related to global climate change, thus the weathering rate is an important parameter in understanding global carbon cycle, critical loads of acid deposition and tolerable soil erosion rate. Chemical weathering of soil minerals releases actively base cations with the climate is the major driving force and mineral stability can affect the rate. With the change of global climate and increasing acid deposition, soil mineral weathering rates are subjected to be accelerated. In this paper, we reviewed the progress in research methods, controlling factors and applying fields of soil mineral weathering rate, and discussed the prospect and research direction in the near future.