masterThesis
Impacto de las prácticas agropecuarias y forestales sobre las propiedades físico-químicas de los suelos andinos del sur del Ecuador
Fecha
2014Autor
Cárdenas Moreno, Irene Lucila
Institución
Resumen
The Andean forest and paramo ecosystems provide several socio-economic and environmental services, however in recent decades these
areas have been suffered enormous pressure mainly due to global
change. Where agricultural, livestock and forestry practices are degrading
these ecosystems. Despite their importance, the impacts have not been
adequately studied. Therefore, this research has as main objective to
identify the impact of agricultural, livestock and forestry practices on the
physical and chemical properties of the main soils types of both
ecosystems. For this, information was collected from 4 observatories, 2 in
páramo (Zhurucay and Soldados) and 2 in montane forest (Mazar and
Aguarongo). The sites were monitored intensively, where both physical
and chemical properties of soils under major land uses were
characterized. To assess the impacts a comparison between non-altered
sites (natural) and altered due to anthropogenic practices on each
observatory was perform. The practices analyzed in paramo ecosystems
were tussockgrass burning, extensive grazing in tussockgrass, pasture
cultivation, planting pines; while in forest were analyzed pasture cultivation
and crop lands. The results show, for the case of forest, that crops cause
greater impact compared to the planting of grasses. In the case of paramo
soils, it was found that the practice causes the most impact is the
forestation with pine. The BpB has greater impact on hydrophysical
properties, while the BpM has greater influence on the chemical. Ppa was
apparently the practice with smaller impact on soil properties