Information about soil enzyme activity and soil DNA as indicators of how land use affects soil quality remains unknown for alluvial island. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of land use on enzyme activities and soil gene diversity in the Chongming Island, Shanghai, China, with the aim of providing further knowledge about the problems related to soil quality and its evolving spatial characteristic on the Chongming Island. The results indicate that land use causes an important change of organic matter, with either causing a small decrease or an increase in the absolute enzyme activity. With increased management intensity, there is an increase in the number of soils with high organic matter content and a decrease in the soils with low organic matter content. The effect on enzyme activity varies depending on the type of land use or management and the type of enzyme. The orders of the number of gene polymorphic bands under different land uses were as follows: agriculture soil>commercial soil>industrial soil>wetland. The complexities of the behaviors of the soil enzymes indicate that genetic analysis and biomarkers in conjunction with geostatistics method will be a powerful and accurate indicator to evaluate soil quality under land use.
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