Vegetation restoration is an effective way to rebuild degraded ecosystems and restore soil function. Soil surface electrochemical properties, including specific surface area, cation exchange capacity, surface charge density, surface electric field strength, and surface potential, are often used as indicators to evaluate agricultural soil quality and fertility. However, little attention has been payed to the effect of natural revegetation on soil surface electrochemical properties. In this work, we selected a grassland restoration chronosequence (slope cropland, 0 years; natural grasslands restored for 3, 8, 22 and 24 years, i.e. NR3, NR8, NR22 and NR24, respectively) to investigate the changes of soil surface electrochemical properties along with vegetative restoration. Our results showed that surface charge density and surface potential for restored grassland ranged from 0.16 to 0.20 C m⁻² and from −94 to −109 mV, with an average of 0.18 C m⁻² and −101 mV, respectively. The value of surface electric field strength could reach to the order of magnitude of −10⁷ V m⁻¹ and showed a decreasing trend with increasing period of natural vegetation recovery. Cation exchange capacity and specific surface area significantly increased with the extension of natural restoration period except for NR3 (P < 0.05). It was found that soil organic matter (SOM) and silt content were the main factors to determine cation exchange capacity and specific surface area. Both cation exchange capacity and specific surface area were closely related to silt content but weakly related to clay content, possibly due to the high silt content in our studied soils. Moreover, cation exchange capacity and specific surface area showed a significant linear relationship with SOM, which may be ascribed to the diversity in cation substitution sites and high specific surface area of SOM. Our results indicated that the long-term natural restoration of grassland contributed to the improvement of cation exchange capacity and specific surface area.

植被恢复是重建退化的生态系统和恢复土壤功能的有效途径。土壤表面的电化学特性，包括比表面积，阳离子交换容量，表面电荷密度，表面电场强度和表面电势，通常用作评估农业土壤质量和肥力的指标。然而，很少有人关注天然植被对土壤表面电化学性质的影响。在这项工作中，我们选择了草地恢复的时间序列（坡耕地，0年；天然草地恢复了3、8、22和24年，即分别为NR3，NR8，NR22和NR24）来研究土壤表面电化学特性的变化。营养恢复。^-2和-94至-109 mV，平均分别为0.18 C m ^-2和-101 mV。表面电场强度的值可以达到-10 ⁷ V m ^-1的数量级，并且随着自然植被恢复期的增加而呈下降趋势。随着天然恢复期的延长，阳离子交换能力和比表面积显着增加，但NR3（P <0.05）。结果表明，土壤有机质和泥沙含量是决定阳离子交换能力和比表面积的主要因素。阳离子交换容量和比表面积都与泥沙含量密切相关，而与黏土含量的关系较弱，这可能是由于我们研究土壤中的泥沙含量较高。此外，阳离子交换容量和比表面积与SOM呈显着线性关系，这可能归因于SOM的阳离子取代位点的多样性和高比表面积。我们的结果表明，草地的长期自然恢复有助于改善阳离子交换能力和比表面积。